What is the shortest function for reading a cookie by name in JavaScript?

Question

What is the shortest, accurate, and cross-browser compatible method for reading a cookie in JavaScript?

Very often, while building stand-alone scri

Answer 1

Here goes.. Cheers!

function getCookie(n) {
    let a = `; ${document.cookie}`.match(`;\\s*${n}=([^;]+)`);
    return a ? a[1] : '';
}

Note that I made use of ES6's template strings to compose the regex expression.

Answer 2

Just to throw my hat in the race, here's my proposal:

function getCookie(name) {
   const cookieDict = document.cookie.split(';')
        .map((x)=>x.split('='))
        .reduce((accum,current) => { accum[current[0]]=current[1]; return accum;}, Object());
    return cookieDict[name];
}

The above code generates a dict that stores cookies as key-value pairs (i.e., cookieDict), and afterwards accesses the property name to retrieve the cookie.

This could effectively be expressed as a one-liner, but this is only for the brave:

document.cookie.split(';').map((x)=>x.split('=')).reduce((accum,current) => { accum[current[0]]=current[1]; return accum;}, {})[name]

The absolute best approach would be to generate cookieDict at page load and then throughout the page lifecycle just access individual cookies by calling cookieDict['cookiename'].

Answer 3

How about this one?

function getCookie(k){var v=document.cookie.match('(^|;) ?'+k+'=([^;]*)(;|$)');return v?v[2]:null}

Counted 89 bytes without the function name.

Answer 4

To truly remove as much bloat as possible, consider not using a wrapper function at all:

try {
    var myCookie = document.cookie.match('(^|;) *myCookie=([^;]*)')[2]
} catch (_) {
    // handle missing cookie
}

As long as you're familiar with RegEx, that code is reasonably clean and easy to read.

Answer 5

Here is the simplest solution using javascript string functions.

document.cookie.substring(document.cookie.indexOf("COOKIE_NAME"), 
                          document.cookie.indexOf(";", 
                          document.cookie.indexOf("COOKIE_NAME"))).
  substr(COOKIE_NAME.length);

Answer 6

this in an object that you can read, write, overWrite and delete cookies.

var cookie = {
    write : function (cname, cvalue, exdays) {
        var d = new Date();
        d.setTime(d.getTime() + (exdays*24*60*60*1000));
        var expires = "expires="+d.toUTCString();
        document.cookie = cname + "=" + cvalue + "; " + expires;
    },
    read : function (name) {
        if (document.cookie.indexOf(name) > -1) {
            return document.cookie.split(name)[1].split("; ")[0].substr(1)
        } else {
            return "";
        }
    },
    delete : function (cname) {
        var d = new Date();
        d.setTime(d.getTime() - 1000);
        var expires = "expires="+d.toUTCString();
        document.cookie = cname + "=; " + expires;
    }
};