Mail::Internet(3pm) User Contributed Perl Documentation Mail::Internet(3pm)
NAME
Mail::Internet - manipulate email messages
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(\@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.
$obj->read($fh)
Read a message from the $fh into an already existing message object.
Better use new() with the $fh 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.
$obj->print( [$fh] )
Print the header, body or whole message to file descriptor $fh. $fd
should be a reference to a GLOB. If $fh is not given the output will
be sent to STDOUT.
example:
$mail->print( \*STDOUT ); # Print message to STDOUT
$obj->print_body( [$fh] )
Print only the body to the $fh (default STDOUT).
$obj->print_header( [$fh] )
Print only the header to the $fh (default STDOUT).
Processing the header
Most of these methods are simply wrappers around methods provided by
Mail::Header.
$obj->add(PAIRS)
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(\@lines)
See Mail::Header::header().
$obj->replace(PAIRS)
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 user's 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 any line 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::SMTP, 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 2001-2024 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 v5.40.0 2024-11-23 Mail::Internet(3pm)
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