Add HTTP::Cookie#expire

[a-alhusaini]

Reasoning

I tried to use cookies.delete("...") today and it didn't cause the cookie to expire from the browser. It sent it again on the next request.

This method sets the cookie value to an empty string and seets the expiry date to 5 minutes ago. Browsers automatically delete expired cookies.

My aim is to provide a convenience to anyone who happens to need to use HTTP::Cookie

[ysbaddaden]

Since the intent is to expire the cookie, then #expire would be a better name than #destroy.

I'd also put an expiration date far further than 5 minutes ago (clocks can get unsynced) and use a fixed date, like the UNIX timestamp (1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC).

[a-alhusaini]

@ysbaddaden Hey julian! This little function is a convenience for destroying cookies (which usually means setting their expiry to some date in the past and setting their value to blank)

I just thought others might want a convenient function to destroy cookies.

Although as you pointed out, it is superflous. I just PR'd it to promote developer happiness :3

[straight-shoota]

It would be much appreciated to follow the guidelines for feature discussions and open an issue for a new proposal first, to keep the general discussion independent of a PR with a concrete implementation.
Since this is relatively trivial, I suppose we can continue the discussion here. But next time, please open an issue first please.

[straight-shoota]

Actually, setting Expires to a date in the past does not fully ensure the cookie to expire. Max-Age takes precedence. If Max-Age is set, the value of Expires doesn't matter.

So I think the functionality should be implemented as self.max_age = Time::Span.zero.
We could also consider self.expires = Time::UNIX_EPOCH on top, just for good measure, but that should not really be necessary.

[a-alhusaini]

Sorry about the typo. I can't run the test suite locally so I'm relying on the CI.

[straight-shoota]

IMO the name #destroy makes sense. Expiration is just the mechanism used to signal to the client to forget this cookie.

[bcardiff]

I think that #expire or #expire! would reflect better the behavior.

There was a issue in the past for rails where the behavior of #delete for cookies was discussed. An outcome of that discussion was that can be applied here is that HTTP::Cookies type is not only used for browsers. For example #destroy in the context of a MITM proxy would have a different expectation. So I think #expire or #expire! would be better and more application agnostic.

[ysbaddaden]

I initially proposed #expire so I wholeheartedly agree with @bcardiff.