Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:11:01 +1000 From: Da Rock <freebsd-questions@herveybayaustralia.com.au> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OT: perl mail problems Message-ID: <4F24FF15.9050205@herveybayaustralia.com.au> In-Reply-To: <4F241EA2.8050805@infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <4F23FAA1.5020700@herveybayaustralia.com.au> <4F241EA2.8050805@infracaninophile.co.uk>
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On 01/29/12 02:13, Matthew Seaman wrote: > On 28/01/2012 13:39, Da Rock wrote: >> I know this is not exactly FreeBSD related, but I'm in need of a monk >> that can enlighten me on a sacred incantation to connect perl to an imap >> server using Mail::Box modules :) If it helps people sleep, its all >> running only on FreeBSD systems... >> >> I have googled and searched, and googled some more, and tested, and then >> went back to the drawing board and googled yet again... there is simply >> no clear answer out there. All the docs are very disjointed from my >> reckoning- with no clear direction that explains how you get from a-b. >> >> I have enabled a connection (I think - based on my tests and logs), but >> I cannot get further than that. I have a Mail::Box::Manager >> instantiated, and then I have to use Mail::Box::IMAP4 to open a >> connection to the server. From there I need to get a list of the folders >> available- and thats where I get stymied. >> >> All the docs are pop3 based, or maildir based, or mbox. The imap is very >> sketchy... and what is out there says to basically connect, and then >> there is a jump to folders and messages with no idea of what is involved >> in between. Although I did see one complete example with pop3, but it >> won't work for imap. > This is absolutely typical -- IMAP is frequently treated as > POP-with-extra-bits, which really makes no sense whatsoever. There's a > fundamental difference in behaviour to do with where the mail is > actually stored. Anything that works by connecting to an IMAP server > and downloading all the new messages to hold and read locally really is > missing the point. I think there is a genuine effort to help make it easier to use and to abstract the backend, but it doesn't seem the coder has a handle on it themselves. They seem more familiar with filesystem based mail then the network ones- and then familiarity with pop3 rules. Therefore me, as a newb, has next to no hope of figuring it out... :/ >> One of the biggest problems is the username confuses any other module >> method than the Mail::Box::IMAP4 - the syntax is user@domain, and so if >> I use Mail::Box::Manager it will compile it into a url form ie >> imap4://user@domain:password@mail.server which it obviously barfs on and >> refuses to look beyond user@domain. > Yeah, IMAP4 doesn't do URL-style things itself, so this is a fiction > invented to appease the higher layers of Mail::Box. Unfortunately, '@' > is of syntactic significance to URL schemes, making it difficult to > incorporate usernames containing it. > > Hmmm.... can you substitute a hex encoded character string in that > username? %40 should be the encoding for an @ character. That could work... I might have a crack at that. I thought pop3 would have trouble as well, you can use that username structure there too. >> I really seem to be missing something fundamental here. I'm only trying >> to create some tools which will handle some situations apparently only >> local to my systems, and improve my perl foo before I start creating >> modules of my own and testing mod_perl. >> >> If someone can help clear this up I'll be happy to communicate off list >> if that is necessary. > Is all the e-mail you have to deal with stored on your IMAP4 server? If > so, then using Mail::IMAPClient directly[*] might serve you better > rather than through the Mail::Box and Mail::Transport classes. However, > that's a much lower level interface and you'll need to be fairly au-fait > with RFC 3501. (That's not as bad as it sounds: all it boils down to is > finding what the command is called in the IMAP protocol when you want to > achieve a particular effect.) Yes... I was dreading that a bit, but it does seem easier. I was hoping it would be more like Email::Simple, but it doesn't seem to be there yet. That said, I'll try that trick and see if it works first. > One thing that I notice on a cursory reading of Mail::Box::IMAP4 is that > it seems to assume things about the behaviour of the IMAP message store > which aren't necessarily true for all different IMAP servers. (ICBW -- > it was a /very/ cursory reading.) Usernames of the form > 'name@example.com' are one of those things you can do with IMAP which > tend to come as a bit of a surprise to people used to other mailclient > protocols. It seems to make some assumptions based on common uses, and I believe it said you can override others; but yes it is also "still under development" - a note which appears and disappears from time to time :S Thanks for the help guys. I've stepped away from php for security reasons; and the fact that I can integrate perl right into apache with mod_perl.
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