Mail::Internet - manipulate Internet format mail messages

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
CONSTRUCTOR
METHODS
UTILITY METHODS
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT

NAME

Mail::Internet - manipulate Internet format (RFC 822) mail messages

SYNOPSIS

    use Mail::Internet;

DESCRIPTION

This package provides a class object which can be used for reading, creating, manipulating and writing a message with RFC822 compliant headers.

If you start writing a new application, you may want to use the the Mail::Box manpage set of packages (requires perl 5.6.1), which has more features and handles modern messages much better. See http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/.

CONSTRUCTOR

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.

OPTIONS is a list of options given in the form of key-value pairs, just like a hash table. Valid options are

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.
Body: 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).

The Mail::Header options Modify, MailFrom and FoldLength may also be given.

METHODS

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.

print_header ( [ FILEHANDLE ] )

print_body ( [ FILEHANDLE ] )

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.

    $mail->print( \*STDOUT );  # Print message to STDOUT

as_string ()

Returns the message as a single string.

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.

head ()

Returns the Mail::Header object which holds the headers for the current message

UTILITY METHODS

The following methods are more a utility type than a manipulation type of method.

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.

tidy_body ()

Removes all leading and trailing lines from the body that only contain white spaces.

reply ()

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.

add_signature ( [ FILE ] )

Append a signature to the message. FILE is a file which contains the signature, if not given then the file ``$ENV{HOME}/.signature'' will be checked for.

send ( [ type [ args.. ]] )

Send a Mail::Internet message using Mail::Mailer. Type and args are passed on to Mail::Mailer

smtpsend ( [ OPTIONS ] )

Send a Mail::Internet message via SMTP, requires Net::SMTP

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.

Options are passed as key-value pairs. Current options are

Host

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

The e-mail address which is used as sender. By default, the mailaddress() method provides the address of the sender.

To

Cc

Bcc

Send the email 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.

Hello

Send a HELO (or EHLO) command to the server with the given name.

Port

Port number to connect to on remote host

Debug

Debug value to pass to Net::SMPT, see <Net::SMTP>

nntppost ( [ OPTIONS ] )

Post an article via NNTP, requires Net::NNTP.

Options are passed as key-value pairs. Current options are

Host: Name of NNTP server to connect to, or a Net::NNTP object to use.
Port: Port number to connect to on remote host
Debug: Debug value to pass to Net::NNTP, see <Net::NNTP>

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/>

unescape_from ()

This method will remove the escaping added by escape_from

AUTHOR

Graham Barr. Maintained by Mark Overmeer <mailtools@overmeer.net>

COPYRIGHT

Mail::Internet - manipulate Internet format mail messages