Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:13:22 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OT: perl mail problems Message-ID: <4F241EA2.8050805@infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <4F23FAA1.5020700@herveybayaustralia.com.au> References: <4F23FAA1.5020700@herveybayaustralia.com.au>
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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 ima=
p
> server using Mail::Box modules :) If it helps people sleep, its all
> running only on FreeBSD systems...
>=20
> I have googled and searched, and googled some more, and tested, and the=
n
> 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.
>=20
> 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 folder=
s
> available- and thats where I get stymied.
>=20
> All the docs are pop3 based, or maildir based, or mbox. The imap is ver=
y
> 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 involve=
d
> 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.
> 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 an=
d
> 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.
> 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.
>=20
> 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.)
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.
Cheers,
Matthew
[*] Mail::Box et al use Mail::IMAPClient behind the scenes.
--=20
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard
Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate
JID: matthew@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW
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