Parsing Cookies in bash cgi scripts -

i trying transfer less of query strings , more of cookies. need make script parses cookies http_cookie request header. format of cookies is:

{cookiename}={cookievalue} {other-cookies}={other-cookie-value} 

my options either set {cookiename} , set value...or scan through full list of cookies , parse bash variable $cookiename equal {cookievalue}

assuming best case scenario, cookies may bash friendly. in case can source cookie file.

. cookies.txt 

and bash save each cookie variable. many tell file not formatted correctly, perhaps having 1 or more of these problems

• invalid characters in variable name
• no quotes around values

in case need add using sed before sourcing file.