Mail::Internet(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Mail::Internet(3)
NAME
Mail::Internet - manipulate email messages
INHERITANCE
SYNOPSIS
use Mail::Internet;
my $msg = Mail::Internet->new(\*STDIN);
DESCRIPTION
This package implements reading, creating, manipulating, and writing
email messages. Sometimes, the implementation tries to be too smart,
but in the general case it works as expected.
If you start writing a new application, you should use the Mail::Box
distribution, which has more features and handles messages much better
according to the RFCs. See <http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/>. You
may also chose MIME::Entity, to get at least some multipart support in
your application.
METHODS
Constructors
$obj->dup
Duplicate the message as a whole. Both header and body will be
deep-copied: a new Mail::Internet object is returned.
$obj->extract(ARRAY-of-LINES)
Extract header and body from an ARRAY of message lines. Requires
an object already created with new(), which contents will get
overwritten.
$obj->new([ARG], [OPTIONS])
Mail::Internet->new([ARG], [OPTIONS])
ARG is optional and may be either a file descriptor (reference to a
GLOB) or a reference to an array. If given the new object will be
initialized with headers and body either from the array of read
from the file descriptor.
The Mail::Header::new() OPTIONS "Modify", "MailFrom" and
"FoldLength" may also be given.
Option--Default
Body []
Header undef
. Body => ARRAY-of-LINES
The value of this option should be a reference to an array
which contains the lines for the body of the message. Each line
should be terminated with "\n" (LF). If Body is given then
"Mail::Internet" will not attempt to read the body from "ARG"
(even if it is specified).
. Header => Mail::Header
The value of this option should be a Mail::Header object. If
given then "Mail::Internet" will not attempt to read a mail
header from "ARG", if it was specified.
$obj->read(FILEHANDLE)
Read a message from the FILEHANDLE into an already existing message
object. Better use new() with the FILEHANDLE as first argument.
Accessors
$obj->body([BODY])
Returns the body of the message. This is a reference to an array.
Each entry in the array represents a single line in the message.
If BODY is given, it can be a reference to an array or an array,
then the body will be replaced. If a reference is passed, it is
used directly and not copied, so any subsequent changes to the
array will change the contents of the body.
$obj->head
Returns the "Mail::Header" object which holds the headers for the
current message
Processing the message as a whole
$obj->as_mbox_string([ALREADY_ESCAPED])
Returns the message as a string in mbox format. "ALREADY_ESCAPED",
if given and true, indicates that escape_from() has already been
called on this object.
$obj->as_string
Returns the message as a single string.
$obj->print([FILEHANDLE])
Print the header, body or whole message to file descriptor
FILEHANDLE. $fd should be a reference to a GLOB. If FILEHANDLE is
not given the output will be sent to STDOUT.
example:
$mail->print( \*STDOUT ); # Print message to STDOUT
$obj->print_body([FILEHANDLE])
Print only the body to the FILEHANDLE (default STDOUT).
$obj->print_header([FILEHANDLE])
Print only the header to the FILEHANDLE (default STDOUT).
Processing the header
Most of these methods are simply wrappers around methods provided by
Mail::Header.
$obj->add(PAIRS-of-FIELD)
The PAIRS are field-name and field-content. For each PAIR,
Mail::Header::add() is called. All fields are added after existing
fields. The last addition is returned.
$obj->combine(TAG, [WITH])
See Mail::Header::combine().
$obj->delete(TAG, [TAGs])
Delete all fields with the name TAG. Mail::Header::delete() is
doing the work.
$obj->fold([LENGTH])
See Mail::Header::fold().
$obj->fold_length([TAG], [LENGTH])
See Mail::Header::fold_length().
$obj->get(TAG, [TAGs])
In LIST context, all fields with the name TAG are returned. In
SCALAR context, only the first field which matches the earliest TAG
is returned. Mail::Header::get() is called to collect the data.
$obj->header([ARRAY-of-LINES])
See Mail::Header::header().
$obj->replace(PAIRS-of-FIELD)
The PAIRS are field-name and field-content. For each PAIR,
Mail::Header::replace() is called with INDEX 0. If a FIELD is
already in the header, it will be removed first. Do not specified
the same field-name twice.
Processing the body
$obj->remove_sig([NLINES])
Attempts to remove a users signature from the body of a message. It
does this by looking for a line equal to '-- ' within the last
"NLINES" of the message. If found then that line and all lines
after it will be removed. If "NLINES" is not given a default value
of 10 will be used. This would be of most use in auto-reply
scripts.
$obj->sign(OPTIONS)
Add your signature to the body. remove_sig() will strip existing
signatures first.
Option --Default
File undef
Signature []
. File => FILEHANDLE
Take from the FILEHANDLE all lines starting from the first
"--".
. Signature => STRING|ARRAY-of-LINES
$obj->tidy_body
Removes all leading and trailing lines from the body that only
contain white spaces.
High-level functionality
$obj->escape_from
It can cause problems with some applications if a message contains
a line starting with `From ', in particular when attempting to
split a folder. This method inserts a leading "`"'> on anyline
that matches the regular expression "/^"*From/>
$obj->nntppost([OPTIONS])
Post an article via NNTP. Requires Net::NNTP to be installed.
Option--Default
Debug <false>
Host <required>
Port 119
. Debug => BOOLEAN
Debug value to pass to Net::NNTP, see Net::NNTP
. Host => HOSTNAME|Net::NNTP object
Name of NNTP server to connect to, or a Net::NNTP object to
use.
. Port => INTEGER
Port number to connect to on remote host
$obj->reply(OPTIONS)
Create a new object with header initialised for a reply to the
current object. And the body will be a copy of the current message
indented.
The ".mailhdr" file in your home directory (if exists) will be read
first, to provide defaults.
Option --Default
Exclude []
Indent '>'
Keep []
ReplyAll false
. Exclude => ARRAY-of-FIELDS
Remove the listed FIELDS from the produced message.
. Indent => STRING
Use as indentation string. The string may contain "%%" to get
a single "%", %f to get the first from name, %F is the first
character of %f, %l is the last name, %L its first character,
%n the whole from string, and %I the first character of each of
the names in the from string.
. Keep => ARRAY-of-FIELDS
Copy the listed FIELDS from the original message.
. ReplyAll => BOOLEAN
Automatically include all To and Cc addresses of the original
mail, excluding those mentioned in the Bcc list.
$obj->send([TYPE, [ARGS...]])
Send a Mail::Internet message using Mail::Mailer. TYPE and ARGS
are passed on to Mail::Mailer::new().
$obj->smtpsend([OPTIONS])
Send a Mail::Internet message using direct SMTP. to the given
ADDRESSES, each can be either a string or a reference to a list of
email addresses. If none of "To", <Cc> or "Bcc" are given then the
addresses are extracted from the message being sent.
The return value will be a list of email addresses that the message
was sent to. If the message was not sent the list will be empty.
Requires Net::SMTP and Net::Domain to be installed.
Option --Default
Bcc undef
Cc undef
Debug <false>
Hello localhost.localdomain
Host $ENV{SMTPHOSTS}
MailFrom Mail::Util::mailaddress()
Port 25
To undef
. Bcc => ADDRESSES
. Cc => ADDRESSES
. Debug => BOOLEAN
Debug value to pass to Net::SMPT, see <Net::SMTP>
. Hello => STRING
Send a HELO (or EHLO) command to the server with the given
name.
. Host => HOSTNAME
Name of the SMTP server to connect to, or a Net::SMTP object to
use
If "Host" is not given then the SMTP host is found by
attempting connections first to hosts specified in
$ENV{SMTPHOSTS}, a colon separated list, then "mailhost" and
"localhost".
. MailFrom => ADDRESS
The e-mail address which is used as sender. By default,
Mail::Util::mailaddress() provides the address of the sender.
. Port => INTEGER
Port number to connect to on remote host
. To => ADDRESSES
$obj->unescape_from(())
Remove the escaping added by escape_from().
SEE ALSO
This module is part of the MailTools distribution,
http://perl.overmeer.net/mailtools/.
AUTHORS
The MailTools bundle was developed by Graham Barr. Later, Mark
Overmeer took over maintenance without commitment to further
development.
Mail::Cap by Gisle Aas <aas@oslonett.no>. Mail::Field::AddrList by
Peter Orbaek <poe@cit.dk>. Mail::Mailer and Mail::Send by Tim Bunce
<Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk>. For other contributors see ChangeLog.
LICENSE
Copyrights 1995-2000 Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com> and 2001-2007 Mark
Overmeer <perl@overmeer.net>.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself. See
http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html
perl v5.10.0 2008-07-29 Mail::Internet(3)
Mac OS X 10.6 - Generated Thu Sep 17 20:13:34 CDT 2009