Set Javascript Cookie Expires and Max-Age

[oangodd]

I’m trying to set a cross browser expiration date for my cookie by setting both the “expires” and “max-age” options.
Please take a look at my code below to see if there is something wrong with the way I set up my cookie and its expiration date.

let names = JSON.stringify(employees);
let expirationDate = new Date();
//expires in 10 years
expirationDate.setTime(expirationDate.getTime() + 3650 * 24* 60 * 60 * 1000);
let expires = "; expires=" + expirationDate.toUTCString();
//expires in 10 years
let maxAge = "; max-age=" + 3650*24*60*60;
document.cookie = "employeeNames=" + names +  maxAge;

I set the cookie to expire in 10 years using both “expires” and “max-age” but when I hover over cookie during debug, it shows the following:

"[{"name":"test1"},{"name":"test2"}]; ai_user = dUFeb8|2019-07-22T20:33:20.533Z"

The questions I have are number one can I use both “expires” and “max-age” on a cookie, number 2 is the expiration date supposed to show as part of the cookie, and number 3 why does it say Feb8|2019-07 if it’s supposed to expire 10 years from now.

[m_hutley]

@oangodd

Please take a look at my code below to see if there is something wrong with the way I set up my cookie and its expiration date.

@oangodd

document.cookie = “employeeNames=” + names + maxAge;

at what stage do you actually tell the cookie to expire?

@oangodd

I set the cookie to expire in 10 years using both “expires” and “max-age”

No you don’t.

@oangodd

number one can I use both “expires” and “max-age” on a cookie

Yes. Browsers that support max-age will use max-age and ignore expires; IE will ignore max-age and use expires, because IE is a silly, silly thing.

@oangodd

number 2 is the expiration date supposed to show as part of the cookie

What browser are you viewing the cookie in, and what mechanism are you using to do it? Chrome has a nice cookie display section in its settings that will show you the expiry set for your cookie.

@oangodd

number 3 why does it say Feb8|2019-07 if it’s supposed to expire 10 years from now.

@oangodd

2019-07-22T20:33:20.533Z

2019-07-22T20:33:20 would be nearly the correct time, depending on when you actually set this cookie; 3650 days is not actually quite 10 years, because you’ve forgotten about leap years, but it’s close enough that people probably won’t notice losing a couple of days from the end of their expiry.

[Paul_Wilkins]

Why don’t you just increase the year of the date by 10 years? That will be much more accurate than the way things are currently being done.

[m3g4p0p]

@m_hutley

2019-07-22T20:33:20 would be nearly the correct time, depending on when you actually set this cookie; 3650 days is not actually quite 10 years, because you’ve forgotten about leap years, but it’s close enough that people probably won’t notice losing a couple of days from the end of their expiry.

LOL yeah, if you want the cookie to expire in exactly 10 years then you might try the following:

const date = new Date()
date.setFullYear(date.getFullYear() + 10)

… although 10 years are pretty much eternity in internet scales – you might as well have it never expire. ^^

Edit: Whoops x-post – like @Paul_Wilkins said.

[m_hutley]

though keep in mind max age isnt taking a date, it takes a number of seconds, and then the browser internally applies that number to current timestamp to arrive at expiry.