title: How do I pass a complex cookie to ab for testing?
body: <p>I'm using <code>ab</code> to test my app, and I'm having trouble passing the correct cookie. My cookie data looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>messages=95925d68c34fcc68b3fcc2e5061a45278c35af41$[[\\\\"__json_message\\\\"\\\\05420\\\\054\\\\"Data\\\\"]]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can't figure out how to get the second part of the string to <code>ab</code> to send to my server. I'm doing something like</p>
  
  <pre><code>ab -C messages='95*snip*5af41$[[\\\\"__json_message\\\\"\\\\05420\\\\054\\\\"Data\\\\"]]' http://example.com:80/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Everything up to the <code>[</code> is sent, but nothing from there on. I'm concerned <code>[</code> is some kind of control to my shell that is getting escaped, but I'm not quite sure what the deal is. I thought the single quotes should allow me to put anything but another single quote inside of them.</p>