Cookie is only returned for a testing flag set via GET param if that flag is queried during the request

[matthewryanscott]

Given:

• myflag is set up with testing=True
• Page A never calls waffle.flag_is_active(request, 'myflag'), and none of the templates it loads have {% flag myflag %}
• Page B makes that function call, and/or loads a template with that tag.
• Browser has either dwft_myflag cookie as False, or does not have that cookie.

Then (current behavior):

• Request page A with GET param ?dwft_myflag=1
• dwft_myflag cookie is never set to True
• Request page B without GET param, and myflag is treated as False

Desired behavior:

• Request page A with GET param ?dwft_myflag=1
• dwft_myflag cookie is set to True
• Request page B without GET param, and myflag is treated as True

[stefanfoulis]

this has bitten me as well

[benje]

👍 a fix for this would be very useful for me too (I wrongly assumed this would be default behaviour)

[jsocol]

Honestly, I don't have a good idea of how to fix this. I have a couple of lousy ideas. The problem is that the prefix (dwft_) is user-configurable—in fact it doesn't even have to be a prefix.

Therein lies the problem. So, a couple of things that could work:

• break backward compat, make it necessarily a prefix
• do something very gross with regex, like re.compile('^' + test_cookie_template.replace('%s', '(.*)') + '$')

Of those, I'd rather break backward compat.