How to set and get cookies in Django?

Using Django’s session framework should cover most scenarios, but Django also now provide direct cookie manipulation methods on the request and response objects (so you don’t need a helper function).

Setting a cookie:

def view(request):
  response = HttpResponse('blah')
  response.set_cookie('cookie_name', 'cookie_value')

Retrieving a cookie:

def view(request):
  value = request.COOKIES.get('cookie_name')
  if value is None:
    # Cookie is not set

  # OR

  try:
    value = request.COOKIES['cookie_name']
  except KeyError:
    # Cookie is not set