IMAPTalk(3pm) User Contributed Perl Documentation IMAPTalk(3pm)
NAME
Mail::IMAPTalk - IMAP client interface with lots of features
SYNOPSIS
use Mail::IMAPTalk;
$IMAP = Mail::IMAPTalk->new(
Server => $IMAPServer,
Username => 'foo',
Password => 'bar',
Uid => 1 )
|| die "Failed to connect/login to IMAP server";
# Append message to folder
open(my $F, 'rfc822msg.txt');
$IMAP->append($FolderName, $F) || dir $@;
close($F);
# Select folder and get first unseen message
$IMAP->select($FolderName) || die $@;
$MsgId = $IMAP->search('not', 'seen')->[0];
# Get message envelope and print some details
$MsgEV = $IMAP->fetch($MsgId, 'envelope')->{$MsgId}->{envelope};
print "From: " . $MsgEv->{From};
print "To: " . $MsgEv->{To};
print "Subject: " . $MsgEv->{Subject};
# Get message body structure
$MsgBS = $IMAP->fetch($MsgId, 'bodystructure')->{$MsgId}->{bodystructure};
# Find imap part number of text part of message
$MsgTxtHash = Mail::IMAPTalk::find_message($MsgBS);
$MsgPart = $MsgTxtHash->{text}->{'IMAP-Partnum'};
# Retrieve message text body
$MsgTxt = $IMAP->fetch($MsgId, "body[$MsgPart]")->{$MsgId}->{body};
$IMAP->logout();
DESCRIPTION
This module communicates with an IMAP server. Each IMAP server command is mapped to a method of this object.
Although other IMAP modules exist on CPAN, this has several advantages over other modules.
o It parses the more complex IMAP structures like envelopes and body structures into nice Perl data structures.
o It correctly supports atoms, quoted strings and literals at any point. Some parsers in other modules aren't fully IMAP compatiable and
may break at odd times with certain messages on some servers.
o It allows large return values (eg. attachments on a message) to be read directly into a file, rather than into memory.
o It includes some helper functions to find the actual text/plain or text/html part of a message out of a complex MIME structure. It
also can find a list of attachements, and CID links for HTML messages with attached images.
o It supports decoding of MIME headers to Perl utf-8 strings automatically, so you don't have to deal with MIME encoded headers (enabled
optionally).
While the IMAP protocol does allow for asynchronous running of commands, this module is designed to be used in a synchronous manner. That
is, you issue a command by calling a method, and the command will block until the appropriate response is returned. The method will then
return the parsed results from the given command.
CLASS OVERVIEW
The object methods have been broken in several sections.
Sections
CONSTANTS
Lists the available constants the class uses.
CONSTRUCTOR
Explains all the options available when constructing a new instance of the "Mail::IMAPTalk" class.
CONNECTION CONTROL METHODS
These are methods which control the overall IMAP connection object, such as logging in and logging out, how results are parsed, how
folder names and message id's are treated, etc.
IMAP FOLDER COMMAND METHODS
These are methods to inspect, add, delete and rename IMAP folders on the server.
IMAP MESSAGE COMMAND METHODS
These are methods to retrieve, delete, move and add messages to/from IMAP folders.
HELPER METHODS
These are extra methods that users of this class might find useful. They generally do extra parsing on returned structures to provide
higher level functionality.
INTERNAL METHODS
These are methods used internally by the "Mail::IMAPTalk" object to get work done. They may be useful if you need to extend the class
yourself. Note that internal methods will always 'die' if they encounter any errors.
INTERNAL SOCKET FUNCTIONS
These are functions used internally by the "Mail::IMAPTalk" object to read/write data to/from the IMAP connection socket. The class
does its own buffering so if you want to read/write to the IMAP socket, you should use these functions.
INTERNAL PARSING FUNCTIONS
These are functions used to parse the results returned from the IMAP server into Perl style data structures.
Method results
All methods return undef on failure. There are four main modes of failure:
1. An error occurred reading/writing to a socket. Maybe the server closed it, or you're not connected to any server.
2. An error occurred parsing the response of an IMAP command. This is usually only a problem if your IMAP server returns invalid data.
3. An IMAP command didn't return an 'OK' response.
4. The socket read operation timed out waiting for a response from the server.
In each case, some readable form of error text is placed in $@, or you can call the "get_last_error()" method. For commands which return
responses (e.g. fetch, getacl, etc), the result is returned. See each command for details of the response result. For commands with no
response but which succeed (e.g. setacl, rename, etc) the result 'ok' is generally returned.
Method parameters
All methods which send data to the IMAP server (e.g. "fetch()", "search()", etc) have their arguments processed before they are sent.
Arguments may be specified in several ways:
scalar
The value is first checked and quoted if required. Values containing [ 00 12 15] are turned into literals, values containing
[ 00- 40{} \%*"] are quoted by surrounding with a "..." pair (any " themselves are turned into ").
file ref
The contents of the file is sent as an IMAP literal. Note that because IMAPTalk has to know the length of the file being sent, this
must be a true file reference that can be seeked and not just some stream. The entire file will be sent regardless of the current seek
point.
scalar ref
The string/data in the referenced item should be sent as is, no quoting will occur, and the data won't be sent as quoted or as a
literal regardless of the contents of the string/data.
hash ref
The hash reference should contain only 1 item. The key is a text string which specifies what to do with the value item of the hash.
o 'Literal'
The string/data in the second item should be sent as an IMAP literal regardless of the actually data in the string/data.
Examples:
# Password is automatically quoted to "nasty%*"passwd"
$IMAP->login("joe", 'nasty%*"passwd');
# Append $MsgTxt as string
$IMAP->append("inbox", { Literal => $MsgTxt })
# Append MSGFILE contents as new message
$IMAP->append("inbox", *MSGFILE ])
CONSTANTS
These constants relate to the standard 4 states that an IMAP connection can be in. They are passed and returned from the "state()" method.
See RFC2060 for more details about IMAP connection states.
Unconnected
Current not connected to any server.
Connected
Connected to a server, but not logged in.
Authenticated
Connected and logged into a server, but not current folder.
Selected
Connected, logged in and have 'select'ed a current folder.
CONSTRUCTOR
Mail::IMAPTalk->new(%Options)
Creates new Mail::IMAPTalk object. The following options are supported.
Connection Options
Server
The hostname or IP address to connect to. This must be supplied unless the Socket option is supplied.
Port
The port number on the host to connect to. Defaults to 143 if not supplied.
Socket
An existing socket to use as the connection to the IMAP server. If you supply the Socket option, you should not supply a Server or
Port option.
This is useful if you want to create an SSL socket connection using IO::Socket::SSL and then pass in the connected socket to the
new() call.
It's also useful in conjunction with the "release_socket()" method described below for reusing the same socket beyond the lifetime
of the IMAPTalk object. See a description in the section "release_socket()" method for more information.
You must have write flushing enabled for any socket you pass in here so that commands will actually be sent, and responses
received, rather than just waiting and eventually timing out. you can do this using the Perl "select()" call and $| ($AUTOFLUSH)
variable as shown below.
my $ofh = select($Socket); $| = 1; select ($ofh);
UseBlocking
For historical reasons, when reading from a socket, the module sets the socket to non-blocking and does a select(). If you're using
an SSL socket that doesn't work, so you have to set UseBlocking to true to use blocking reads instead.
State
If you supply a "Socket" option, you can specify the IMAP state the socket is currently in, namely one of 'Unconnected',
'Connected', 'Authenticated' or 'Selected'. This defaults to 'Connected' if not supplied and the "Socket" option is supplied.
ExpectGreeting
If supplied and true, and a socket is supplied via the "Socket" option, checks that a greeting line is supplied by the server and
reads the greeting line.
Login Options
Username
The username to connect to the IMAP server as. If not supplied, no login is attempted and the IMAP object is left in the CONNECTED
state. If supplied, you must also supply the Password option and a login is attempted. If the login fails, the connection is
closed and undef is returned. If you want to do something with a connection even if the login fails, don't pass a Username option,
but instead use the login method described below.
Password
The password to use to login to the account.
IMAP message/folder options
Uid Control whether message ids are message uids or not. This is 1 (on) by default because generally that's how most people want to use
it. This affects most commands that require/use/return message ids (e.g. fetch, search, sort, etc)
RootFolder
If supplied, sets the root folder prefix. This is the same as calling "set_root_folder()" with the value passed. If no value is
supplied, "set_root_folder()" is called with no value. See the "set_root_folder()" method for more details.
Separator
If supplied, sets the folder name text string separator character. Passed as the second parameter to the "set_root_folder()"
method.
CaseInsensitive
If supplied, passed along with RootFolder to the "set_root_folder()" method.
AltRootRegexp
If supplied, passed along with RootFolder to the "set_root_folder()" method.
Examples:
$imap = Mail::IMAPTalk->new(
Server => 'foo.com',
Port => 143,
Username => 'joebloggs',
Password => 'mypassword',
Separator => '.',
RootFolder => 'inbox',
CaseInsensitive => 1)
|| die "Connection to foo.com failed. Reason: $@";
$imap = Mail::IMAPTalk->new(
Socket => $SSLSocket,
State => Mail::IMAPTalk::Authenticated,
Uid => 0)
|| die "Could not query on existing socket. Reason: $@";
CONNECTION CONTROL METHODS
login($UnqName, $Password)
Attempt to login user specified username and password.
Currently there is only plain text password login support. If someone can give me a hand implementing others (like DIGEST-MD5,
CRAM-MD5, etc) please contact me (see details below).
logout()
Log out of IMAP server. This usually closes the servers connection as well.
state(optional $State)
Set/get the current IMAP connection state. Returned or passed value should be one of the constants (Unconnected, Connected,
Authenticated, Selected).
uid(optional $UidMode)
Get/set the UID status of all UID possible IMAP commands. If set to 1, all commands that can take a UID are set to 'UID Mode', where
any ID sent to IMAPTalk is assumed to be a UID.
capability()
This method returns the IMAP servers capability command results. The result is a hash reference of (lc(Capability) => 1) key value
pairs. This means you can do things like:
if ($IMAP->capability()->{quota}) { ... }
to test if the server has the QUOTA capability. If you just want a list of capabilities, use the Perl 'keys' function to get a list of
keys from the returned hash reference.
namespace()
Returns the result of the IMAP servers namespace command.
noop()
Perform the standard IMAP 'noop' command which does nothing.
enable($option)
Enabled the given imap extension
is_open()
Returns true if the current socket connection is still open (e.g. the socket hasn't been closed this end or the other end due to a
timeout).
set_root_folder($RootFolder, $Separator, optional $CaseInsensitive, $AltRootRegexp)
Change the root folder prefix. Some IMAP servers require that all user folders/mailboxes live under a root folder prefix (current
versions of cyrus for example use 'INBOX' for personal folders and 'user' for other users folders). If no value is specified, it sets
it to ''. You might want to use the namespace() method to find out what roots are available. The $CaseInsensitive argument is a flag
that determines whether the root folder should be matched in a case sensitive or insensitive way. See below.
Setting this affects all commands that take a folder argument. Basically if the foldername begins with root folder prefix (case
sensitive or insensitive based on the second argument), it's left as is, otherwise the root folder prefix and separator char are
prefixed to the folder name.
The AltRootRegexp is a regexp that if the start of the folder name matches, does not have $RootFolder preprended. You can use this to
protect other namespaces in your IMAP server.
Examples:
# This is what cyrus uses
$IMAP->set_root_folder('inbox', '.', 1, 'user');
# Selects 'Inbox' (because 'Inbox' eq 'inbox' case insensitive)
$IMAP->select('Inbox');
# Selects 'inbox.blah'
$IMAP->select('blah');
# Selects 'INBOX.fred' (because 'INBOX' eq 'inbox' case insensitive)
#IMAP->select('INBOX.fred'); # Selects 'INBOX.fred'
# Selects 'user.john' (because 'user' is alt root)
#IMAP->select('user.john'); # Selects 'user.john'
_set_separator($Separator)
Checks if the given separator is the same as the one we used before. If not, it calls set_root_folder to recreate the settings with
the new Separator.
literal_handle_control(optional $FileHandle)
Sets the mode whether to read literals as file handles or scalars.
You should pass a filehandle here that any literal will be read into. To turn off literal reads into a file handle, pass a 0.
Examples:
# Read rfc822 text of message 3 into file
# (note that the file will have /r/n line terminators)
open(F, ">messagebody.txt");
$IMAP->literal_handle_control(*F);
$IMAP->fetch(3, 'rfc822');
$IMAP->literal_handle_control(0);
release_socket()
Release IMAPTalk's ownership of the current socket it's using so it's not disconnected on DESTROY. This returns the socket, and makes
sure that the IMAPTalk object doesn't hold a reference to it any more. This means you can't call any methods on the IMAPTalk object
any more.
get_last_error()
Returns a text string which describes the last error that occurred.
get_last_completion_response()
Returns the last completion response to the tagged command.
This is either the string "ok", "no" or "bad" (always lower case)
get_response_code($Response)
Returns the extra response data generated by a previous call. This is most often used after calling select which usually generates some
set of the following sub-results.
o permanentflags
Array reference of flags which are stored permanently.
o uidvalidity
Whether the current UID set is valid. See the IMAP RFC for more information on this. If this value changes, then all UIDs in the
folder have been changed.
o uidnext
The next UID number that will be assigned.
o exists
Number of messages that exist in the folder.
o recent
Number of messages that are recent in the folder.
Other possible responses are alert, newname, parse, trycreate, appenduid.
Examples:
# Select inbox and get list of permanent flags, uidnext and number
# of message in the folder
$IMAP->select('inbox');
my $NMessages = $IMAP->get_sub_result('exists');
my $PermanentFlags = $IMAP->get_sub_result('permanentflags');
my $UidNext = $IMAP->get_sub_result('uidnext');
clear_reponse_code($Response)
Clears any response code information. Response code information is not normally cleared between calls.
parse_mode(ParseOption => $ParseMode)
Changes how results of fetch commands are parsed. Available options are:
BodyStructure
Parse bodystructure into more Perl-friendly structure See the FETCH RESULTS section.
Envelope
Parse envelopes into more Perl-friendly structure See the FETCH RESULTS section.
EnvelopeRaw
If parsing envelopes, create To/Cc/Bcc and Raw-To/Raw-Cc/Raw-Bcc entries which are array refs of 4 entries each as returned by the
IMAP server.
DecodeUTF8
If parsing envelopes, decode any MIME encoded headers into Perl UTF-8 strings.
For this to work, you must have 'used' Mail::IMAPTalk with:
use Mail::IMAPTalk qw(:utf8support ...)
set_tracing($Tracer)
Allows you to trace both IMAP input and output sent to the server and returned from the server. This is useful for debugging. Returns
the previous value of the tracer and then sets it to the passed value. Possible values for $Tracer are:
0 Disable all tracing.
1 Print to STDERR.
Code ref
Call code ref for each line input and output. Pass line as parameter.
Glob ref
Print to glob.
Scalar ref
Appends to the referenced scalar.
Note: literals are never passed to the tracer.
IMAP FOLDER COMMAND METHODS
Note: In all cases where a folder name is used, the folder name is first manipulated according to the current root folder prefix as
described in "set_root_folder()".
select($FolderName, @Opts)
Perform the standard IMAP 'select' command to select a folder for retrieving/moving/adding messages. If $Opts{ReadOnly} is true, the
IMAP EXAMINE verb is used instead of SELECT.
Mail::IMAPTalk will cache the currently selected folder, and if you issue another ->select("XYZ") for the folder that is already
selected, it will just return immediately. This can confuse code that expects to get side effects of a select call. For that case, call
->unselect() first, then ->select().
unselect()
Performs the standard IMAP unselect command.
examine($FolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'examine' command to select a folder in read only mode for retrieving messages. This is the same as
"select($FolderName, 1)". See "select()" for more details.
create($FolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'create' command to create a new folder.
delete($FolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'delete' command to delete a folder.
localdelete($FolderName)
Perform the IMAP 'localdelete' command to delete a folder (doesn't delete subfolders even of INBOX, is always immediate.
rename($OldFolderName, $NewFolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'rename' command to rename a folder.
list($Reference, $Name)
Perform the standard IMAP 'list' command to return a list of available folders.
lsub($Reference, $Name)
Perform the standard IMAP 'lsub' command to return a list of subscribed folders
subscribe($FolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'subscribe' command to subscribe to a folder.
unsubscribe($FolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'unsubscribe' command to unsubscribe from a folder.
check()
Perform the standard IMAP 'check' command to checkpoint the current folder.
setacl($FolderName, $User, $Rights)
Perform the IMAP 'setacl' command to set the access control list details of a folder/mailbox. See RFC2086 for more details on the IMAP
ACL extension. $User is the user name to set the access rights for. $Rights is either a list of absolute rights to set, or a list
prefixed by a - to remove those rights, or a + to add those rights.
l - lookup (mailbox is visible to LIST/LSUB commands)
r - read (SELECT the mailbox, perform CHECK, FETCH, PARTIAL, SEARCH, COPY from mailbox)
s - keep seen/unseen information across sessions (STORE SEEN flag)
w - write (STORE flags other than SEEN and DELETED)
i - insert (perform APPEND, COPY into mailbox)
p - post (send mail to submission address for mailbox, not enforced by IMAP4 itself)
c - create (CREATE new sub-mailboxes in any implementation-defined hierarchy)
d - delete (STORE DELETED flag, perform EXPUNGE)
a - administer (perform SETACL)
The standard access control configurations for cyrus are
read = "lrs"
post = "lrsp"
append = "lrsip"
write = "lrswipcd"
all = "lrswipcda"
Examples:
# Get full access for user 'joe' on his own folder
$IMAP->setacl('user.joe', 'joe', 'lrswipcda') || die "IMAP error: $@";
# Remove write, insert, post, create, delete access for user 'andrew'
$IMAP->setacl('user.joe', 'andrew', '-wipcd') || die "IMAP error: $@";
# Add lookup, read, keep unseen information for user 'paul'
$IMAP->setacl('user.joe', 'paul', '+lrs') || die "IMAP error: $@";
getacl($FolderName)
Perform the IMAP 'getacl' command to get the access control list details of a folder/mailbox. See RFC2086 for more details on the IMAP
ACL extension. Returns an array of pairs. Each pair is a username followed by the access rights for that user. See setacl for more
information on access rights.
Examples:
my $Rights = $IMAP->getacl('user.joe') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$Rights = [
'joe', 'lrs',
'andrew', 'lrswipcda'
];
$IMAP->setacl('user.joe', 'joe', 'lrswipcda') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$IMAP->setacl('user.joe', 'andrew', '-wipcd') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$IMAP->setacl('user.joe', 'paul', '+lrs') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$Rights = $IMAP->getacl('user.joe') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$Rights = [
'joe', 'lrswipcd',
'andrew', 'lrs',
'paul', 'lrs'
];
deleteacl($FolderName, $Username)
Perform the IMAP 'deleteacl' command to delete all access control information for the given user on the given folder. See setacl for
more information on access rights.
Examples:
my $Rights = $IMAP->getacl('user.joe') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$Rights = [
'joe', 'lrswipcd',
'andrew', 'lrs',
'paul', 'lrs'
];
# Delete access information for user 'andrew'
$IMAP->deleteacl('user.joe', 'andrew') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$Rights = $IMAP->getacl('user.joe') || die "IMAP error : $@";
$Rights = [
'joe', 'lrswipcd',
'paul', 'lrs'
];
setquota($FolderName, $QuotaDetails)
Perform the IMAP 'setquota' command to set the usage quota details of a folder/mailbox. See RFC2087 for details of the IMAP quota
extension. $QuotaDetails is a bracketed list of limit item/value pairs which represent a particular type of limit and the value to set
it to. Current limits are:
STORAGE - Sum of messages' RFC822.SIZE, in units of 1024 octets
MESSAGE - Number of messages
Examples:
# Set maximum size of folder to 50M and 1000 messages
$IMAP->setquota('user.joe', '(storage 50000)') || die "IMAP error: $@";
$IMAP->setquota('user.john', '(messages 1000)') || die "IMAP error: $@";
# Remove quotas
$IMAP->setquota('user.joe', '()') || die "IMAP error: $@";
getquota($FolderName)
Perform the standard IMAP 'getquota' command to get the quota details of a folder/mailbox. See RFC2087 for details of the IMAP quota
extension. Returns an array reference to quota limit triplets. Each triplet is made of: limit item, current value, maximum value.
Note that this only returns the quota for a folder if it actually has had a quota set on it. It's possible that a parent folder might
have a quota as well which affects sub-folders. Use the getquotaroot to find out if this is true.
Examples:
my $Result = $IMAP->getquota('user.joe') || die "IMAP error: $@";
$Result = [
'STORAGE', 31, 50000,
'MESSAGE', 5, 1000
];
getquotaroot($FolderName)
Perform the IMAP 'getquotaroot' command to get the quota details of a folder/mailbox and possible root quota as well. See RFC2087 for
details of the IMAP quota extension. The result of this command is a little complex. Unfortunately it doesn't map really easily into
any structure since there are several different responses.
Basically it's a hash reference. The 'quotaroot' item is the response which lists the root quotas that apply to the given folder. The
first item is the folder name, and the remaining items are the quota root items. There is then a hash item for each quota root item.
It's probably easiest to look at the example below.
Examples:
my $Result = $IMAP->getquotaroot('user.joe.blah') || die "IMAP error: $@";
$Result = {
'quotaroot' => [
'user.joe.blah', 'user.joe', ''
],
'user.joe' => [
'STORAGE', 31, 50000,
'MESSAGES', 5, 1000
],
'' => [
'MESSAGES', 3498, 100000
]
};
message_count($FolderName)
Return the number of messages in a folder. See also "status()" for getting more information about messages in a folder.
status($FolderName, $StatusList)
Perform the standard IMAP 'status' command to retrieve status information about a folder/mailbox.
The $StatusList is a bracketed list of folder items to obtain the status of. Can contain: messages, recent, uidnext, uidvalidity,
unseen.
The return value is a hash reference of lc(status-item) => value.
Examples:
my $Res = $IMAP->status('inbox', '(MESSAGES UNSEEN)');
$Res = {
'messages' => 8,
'unseen' => 2
};
multistatus($StatusList, @FolderNames)
Performs many IMAP 'status' commands on a list of folders. Sends all the commands at once and wait for responses. This speeds up
latency issues.
Returns a hash ref of folder name => status results.
getannotation($FolderName, $Entry, $Attribute)
Perform the IMAP 'getannotation' command to get the annotation(s) for a mailbox. See imap-annotatemore extension for details.
Examples:
my $Result = $IMAP->getannotation('user.joe.blah', '/*' '*') || die "IMAP error: $@";
$Result = {
'user.joe.blah' => {
'/vendor/cmu/cyrus-imapd/size' => {
'size.shared' => '5',
'content-type.shared' => 'text/plain',
'value.shared' => '19261'
},
'/vendor/cmu/cyrus-imapd/lastupdate' => {
'size.shared' => '26',
'content-type.shared' => 'text/plain',
'value.shared' => '26-Mar-2004 13:31:56 -0800'
},
'/vendor/cmu/cyrus-imapd/partition' => {
'size.shared' => '7',
'content-type.shared' => 'text/plain',
'value.shared' => 'default'
}
}
};
getmetadata($FolderName, [ \%Options ], @Entries)
Perform the IMAP 'getmetadata' command to get the metadata items for a mailbox. See RFC5464 for details.
If $Options is passed, it is a hashref of options to set.
If foldername is the empty string, gets server annotations
Examples:
my $Result = $IMAP->getmetadata('user.joe.blah', {depth => 'infinity'}, '/shared') || die "IMAP error: $@";
$Result = {
'user.joe.blah' => {
'/shared/vendor/cmu/cyrus-imapd/size' => '19261',
'/shared/vendor/cmu/cyrus-imapd/lastupdate' => '26-Mar-2004 13:31:56 -0800',
'/shared/vendor/cmu/cyrus-imapd/partition' => 'default',
}
};
my $Result = $IMAP->getmetadata('', "/shared/comment");
$Result => {
'' => {
'/shared/comment' => "Shared comment",
}
};
setannotation($FolderName, $Entry, [ $Attribute, $Value ])
Perform the IMAP 'setannotation' command to get the annotation(s) for a mailbox. See imap-annotatemore extension for details.
Examples:
my $Result = $IMAP->setannotation('user.joe.blah', '/comment', [ 'value.priv' 'A comment' ])
|| die "IMAP error: $@";
setmetadata($FolderName, $Name, $Value, $Name2, $Value2)
Perform the IMAP 'setmetadata' command. See RFC 5464 for details.
Examples:
my $Result = $IMAP->setmetadata('user.joe.blah', '/comment', 'A comment')
|| die "IMAP error: $@";
multigetannotation($Entry, $Attribute, @FolderNames)
Performs many IMAP 'getannotation' commands on a list of folders. Sends all the commands at once and wait for responses. This speeds up
latency issues.
Returns a hash ref of folder name => annotation results.
close()
Perform the standard IMAP 'close' command to expunge deleted messages from the current folder and return to the Authenticated state.
IMAP MESSAGE COMMAND METHODS
fetch($MessageIds, $MessageItems)
Perform the standard IMAP 'fetch' command to retrieve the specified message items from the specified message IDs.
$MessageIds can be one of two forms:
1. A text string with a comma separated list of message ID's or message ranges separated by colons. A '*' represents the highest
message number.
Examples:
o '1' - first message
o '1,2,5'
o '1:*' - all messages
o '1,3:*' - all but message 2
Note that , separated lists and : separated ranges can be mixed, but to make sure a certain hack works, if a '*' is used, it must
be the last character in the string.
2. An array reference with a list of message ID's or ranges. The array contents are "join(',', ...)"ed together.
Note: If the "uid()" state has been set to true, then all message ID's must be message UIDs.
$MessageItems can be one of, or a bracketed list of:
o uid
o flags
o internaldate
o envelope
o bodystructure
o body
o body[section]<partial>
o body.peek[section]<partial>
o rfc822
o rfc822.header
o rfc822.size
o rfc822.text
o fast
o all
o full
It would be a good idea to see RFC2060 for what all these means.
Examples:
my $Res = $IMAP->fetch('1:*', 'rfc822.size');
my $Res = $IMAP->fetch([1,2,3], '(bodystructure envelope)');
Return results:
The results returned by the IMAP server are parsed into a Perl structure. See the section FETCH RESULTS for all the interesting
details.
Note that message can disappear on you, so you may not get back all the entries you expect in the hash
There is one piece of magic. If your request is for a single uid, (eg "123"), and no data is return, we return undef, because it's
easier to handle as an error condition.
copy($MsgIds, $ToFolder)
Perform standard IMAP copy command to copy a set of messages from one folder to another.
append($FolderName, optional $MsgFlags, optional $MsgDate, $MessageData)
Perform standard IMAP append command to append a new message into a folder.
The $MessageData to append can either be a Perl scalar containing the data, or a file handle to read the data from. In each case, the
data must be in proper RFC822 format with
line terminators.
Any optional fields not needed should be removed, not left blank.
Examples:
# msg.txt should have
line terminators
open(F, "msg.txt");
$IMAP->append('inbox', *F);
my $MsgTxt =<<MSG;
From: blah@xyz.com
To: whoever@whereever.com
...
MSG
$MsgTxt =~ s/
/ 15 12/g;
$IMAP->append('inbox', { Literal => $MsgTxt });
search($MsgIdSet, @SearchCriteria)
Perform standard IMAP search command. The result is an array reference to a list of message IDs (or UIDs if in Uid mode) of messages
that are in the $MsgIdSet and also meet the search criteria.
@SearchCriteria is a list of search specifications, for example to look for ASCII messages bigger than 2000 bytes you would set the
list to be:
my @SearchCriteria = ('CHARSET', 'US-ASCII', 'LARGER', '2000');
Examples:
my $Res = $IMAP->search('1:*', 'NOT', 'DELETED');
$Res = [ 1, 2, 5 ];
store($MsgIdSet, $FlagOperation, $Flags)
Perform standard IMAP store command. Changes the flags associated with a set of messages.
Examples:
$IMAP->store('1:*', '+flags', '(\deleted)');
$IMAP->store('1:*', '-flags.silent', '(\read)');
expunge()
Perform standard IMAP expunge command. This actually deletes any messages marked as deleted.
uidexpunge($MsgIdSet)
Perform IMAP uid expunge command as per RFC 2359.
sort($SortField, $CharSet, @SearchCriteria)
Perform extension IMAP sort command. The result is an array reference to a list of message IDs (or UIDs if in Uid mode) in sorted
order.
It would probably be a good idea to look at the sort extension details at somewhere like :
http://www.imap.org/papers/docs/sort-ext.html.
Examples:
my $Res = $IMAP->sort('(subject)', 'US-ASCII', 'NOT', 'DELETED');
$Res = [ 5, 2, 3, 1, 4 ];
thread($ThreadType, $CharSet, @SearchCriteria)
Perform extension IMAP thread command. The $ThreadType should be one of 'REFERENCES' or 'ORDEREDSUBJECT'. You should check the
"capability()" of the server to see if it supports one or both of these.
Examples
my $Res = $IMAP->thread('REFERENCES', 'US-ASCII', 'NOT', 'DELETED');
$Res = [ [10, 15, 20], [11], [ [ 12, 16 ], [13, 17] ];
fetch_flags($MessageIds)
Perform an IMAP 'fetch flags' command to retrieve the specified flags for the specified messages.
This is just a special fast path version of "fetch".
fetch_meta($MessageIds, @MetaItems)
Perform an IMAP 'fetch' command to retrieve the specified meta items. These must be simple items that return only atoms (eg no flags,
bodystructure, body, envelope, etc)
This is just a special fast path version of "fetch".
IMAP HELPER FUNCTIONS
get_body_part($BodyStruct, $PartNum)
This is a helper function that can be used to further parse the results of a fetched bodystructure. Given a top level body structure,
and a part number, it returns the reference to the bodystructure sub part which that part number refers to.
Examples:
# Fetch body structure
my $FR = $IMAP->fetch(1, 'bodystructure');
my $BS = $FR->{1}->{bodystructure};
# Parse further to find particular sub part
my $P12 = $IMAP->get_body_part($BS, '1.2');
$P12->{'IMAP->Partnum'} eq '1.2' || die "Unexpected IMAP part number";
find_message($BodyStruct)
This is a helper function that can be used to further parse the results of a fetched bodystructure. It returns a hash reference with
the following items.
text => $best_text_part
html => $best_html_part (optional)
textlist => [ ... text/html (if no alt text bits)/image (if inline) parts ... ]
htmllist => [ ... text (if no alt html bits)/html/image (if inline) parts ... ]
att => [ {
bs => $part, text => 0/1, html => 0/1, msg => 1/0,
}, { ... }, ... ]
For instance, consider a message with text and html pages that's then gone through a list software manager that attaches a
header/footer
multipart/mixed
text/plain, cd=inline - A
multipart/mixed
multipart/alternative
multipart/mixed
text/plain, cd=inline - B
image/jpeg, cd=inline - C
text/plain, cd=inline - D
multipart/related
text/html - E
image/jpeg - F
image/jpeg, cd=attachment - G
application/x-excel - H
message/rfc822 - J
text/plain, cd=inline - K
In this case, we'd have the following list items
text => B
html => E
textlist => [ A, B, C, D, K ]
htmllist => [ A, E, K ]
att => [
{ bs => C, text => 1, html => 1 },
{ bs => F, text => 1, html => 0 },
{ bs => G, text => 1, html => 1 },
{ bs => H, text => 1, html => 1 },
{ bs => J, text => 0, html => 0, msg => 1 },
]
Examples:
# Fetch body structure
my $FR = $IMAP->fetch(1, 'bodystructure');
my $BS = $FR->{1}->{bodystructure};
# Parse further to find message components
my $MC = $IMAP->find_message($BS);
$MC = { 'plain' => ... text body struct ref part ...,
'html' => ... html body struct ref part (if present) ...
'htmllist' => [ ... html body struct ref parts (if present) ... ] };
# Now get the text part of the message
my $MT = $IMAP->fetch(1, 'body[' . $MC->{text}->{'IMAP-Part'} . ']');
generate_cid( $Token, $PartBS )
This method generates a ContentID based on $Token and $PartBS.
The same value should always be returned for a given $Token and $PartBS
build_cid_map($BodyStruct, [ $IMAP, $Uid, $GenCidToken ])
This is a helper function that can be used to further parse the results of a fetched bodystructure. It recursively parses the
bodystructure and returns a hash of Content-ID to bodystruct part references. This is useful when trying to determine CID links from an
HTML message.
If you pass a Mail::IMAPTalk object as the second parameter, the CID map built may be even more detailed. It seems some stupid versions
of exchange put details in the Content-Location header rather than the Content-Type header. If that's the case, this will try and fetch
the header from the message
Examples:
# Fetch body structure
my $FR = $IMAP->fetch(1, 'bodystructure');
my $BS = $FR->{1}->{bodystructure};
# Parse further to get CID links
my $CL = build_cid_map($BS);
$CL = { '2958293123' => ... ref to body part ..., ... };
obliterate($CyrusName)
Given a username (optionally username@domain) immediately delete all messages belonging to this user. Uses LOCALDELETE. Quite
FastMail Patchd Cyrus specific.
IMAP CALLBACKS
By default, these methods do nothing, but you can dervice from Mail::IMAPTalk and override these methods to trap any things you want to
catch
cb_switch_folder($CurrentFolder, $NewFolder)
Called when the currently selected folder is being changed (eg 'select' called and definitely a different folder is being selected, or
'unselect' methods called)
cb_folder_changed($Folder)
Called when a command changes the contents of a folder (eg copy, append, etc). $Folder is the name of the folder that's changing.
FETCH RESULTS
The 'fetch' operation is probably the most common thing you'll do with an IMAP connection. This operation allows you to retrieve
information about a message or set of messages, including header fields, flags or parts of the message body.
"Mail::IMAPTalk" will always parse the results of a fetch call into a Perl like structure, though 'bodystructure', 'envelope' and 'uid'
responses may have additional parsing depending on the "parse_mode" state and the "uid" state (see below).
For an example case, consider the following IMAP commands and responses (C is what the client sends, S is the server response).
C: a100 fetch 5,6 (flags rfc822.size uid)
S: * 1 fetch (UID 1952 FLAGS (
ecent seen) RFC822.SIZE 1150)
S: * 2 fetch (UID 1958 FLAGS (
ecent) RFC822.SIZE 110)
S: a100 OK Completed
The fetch command can be sent by calling:
my $Res = $IMAP->fetch('1:*', '(flags rfc822.size uid)');
The result in response will look like this:
$Res = {
1 => {
'uid' => 1952,
'flags' => [ '\recent', '\seen' ],
'rfc822.size' => 1150
},
2 => {
'uid' => 1958,
'flags' => [ '\recent' ],
'rfc822.size' => 110
}
};
A couple of points to note:
1. The message IDs have been turned into a hash from message ID to fetch response result.
2. The response items (e.g. uid, flags, etc) have been turned into a hash for each message, and also changed to lower case values.
3. Other bracketed (...) lists have become array references.
In general, this is how all fetch responses are parsed. There is one major difference however when the IMAP connection is in 'uid' mode.
In this case, the message IDs in the main hash are changed to message UIDs, and the 'uid' entry in the inner hash is removed. So the above
example would become:
my $Res = $IMAP->fetch('1:*', '(flags rfc822.size)');
$Res = {
1952 => {
'flags' => [ '\recent', '\seen' ],
'rfc822.size' => 1150
},
1958 => {
'flags' => [ '\recent' ],
'rfc822.size' => 110
}
};
Bodystructure
When dealing with messages, we need to understand the MIME structure of the message, so we can work out what is the text body, what is
attachments, etc. This is where the 'bodystructure' item from an IMAP server comes in.
C: a101 fetch 1 (bodystructure)
S: * 1 fetch (BODYSTRUCTURE ("TEXT" "PLAIN" NIL NIL NIL "QUOTED-PRINTABLE" 255 11 NIL ("INLINE" NIL) NIL))
S: a101 OK Completed
The fetch command can be sent by calling:
my $Res = $IMAP->fetch(1, 'bodystructure');
As expected, the resultant response would look like this:
$Res = {
1 => {
'bodystructure' => [
'TEXT', 'PLAIN', undef, undef, undef, 'QUOTED-PRINTABLE',
255, 11, UNDEF, [ 'INLINE', undef ], undef
]
}
};
However, if you set the "parse_mode(BodyStructure =" 1)>, then the result would be:
$Res = {
'1' => {
'bodystructure' => {
'MIME-Type' => 'text',
'MIME-Subtype' => 'plain',
'MIME-TxtType' => 'text/plain',
'Content-Type' => {},
'Content-ID' => undef,
'Content-Description' => undef,
'Content-Transfer-Encoding' => 'QUOTED-PRINTABLE',
'Size' => '3569',
'Lines' => '94',
'Content-MD5' => undef,
'Content-Disposition' => [
'INLINE',
undef
],
'Content-Language' => undef,
'Remainder' => [],
'IMAP-Partnum' => ''
}
}
};
A couple of points to note here:
1. All the positional fields from the bodystructure list response have been turned into nicely named key/value hash items.
2. The MIME-Type and MIME-Subtype fields have been made lower case.
3. An IMAP-Partnum item has been added. The value in this field can be passed as the 'section' number of an IMAP body fetch call to
retrieve the text of that IMAP section.
In general, the following items are defined for all body structures:
o MIME-Type
o MIME-Subtype
o Content-Type
o Content-Disposition
o Content-Language
For all bodystructures EXCEPT those that have a MIME-Type of 'multipart', the following are defined:
o Content-ID
o Content-Description
o Content-Transfer-Encoding
o Size
o Content-MD5
o Remainder
o IMAP-Partnum
For bodystructures where MIME-Type is 'text', an extra item 'Lines' is defined.
For bodystructures where MIME-Type is 'message' and MIME-Subtype is 'rfc822', the extra items 'Message-Envelope', 'Message-Bodystructure'
and 'Message-Lines' are defined. The 'Message-Bodystructure' item is itself a reference to an entire bodystructure hash with all the format
information of the contained message. The 'Message-Envelope' item is a hash structure with the message header information. See the Envelope
entry below.
For bodystructures where MIME-Type is 'multipart', an extra item 'MIME-Subparts' is defined. The 'MIME-Subparts' item is an array
reference, with each item being a reference to an entire bodystructure hash with all the format information of each MIME sub-part.
For further processing, you can use the find_message() function. This will analyse the body structure and find which part corresponds to
the main text/html message parts to display. You can also use the find_cid_parts() function to find CID links in an html message.
Envelope
The envelope structure contains most of the addressing header fields from an email message. The following shows an example envelope fetch
(the response from the IMAP server has been neatened up here)
C: a102 fetch 1 (envelope)
S: * 1 FETCH (ENVELOPE
("Tue, 7 Nov 2000 08:31:21 UT" # Date
"FW: another question" # Subject
(("John B" NIL "jb" "abc.com")) # From
(("John B" NIL "jb" "abc.com")) # Sender
(("John B" NIL "jb" "abc.com")) # Reply-To
(("Bob H" NIL "bh" "xyz.com") # To
("K Jones" NIL "kj" "lmn.com"))
NIL # Cc
NIL # Bcc
NIL # In-Reply-To
NIL) # Message-ID
)
S: a102 OK Completed
The fetch command can be sent by calling:
my $Res = $IMAP->fetch(1, 'envelope');
And you get the idea of what the resultant response would be. Again if you change "parse_mode(Envelope =" 1)>, you get a neat structure as
follows:
$Res = {
'1' => {
'envelope' => {
'Date' => 'Tue, 7 Nov 2000 08:31:21 UT',
'Subject' => 'FW: another question',
'From' => '"John B" <jb@abc.com>',
'Sender' => '"John B" <jb@abc.com>',
'Reply-To' => '"John B" <jb@abc.com>',
'To' => '"Bob H" <bh@xyz.com>, "K Jones" <kj@lmn.com>',
'Cc' => '',
'Bcc' => '',
'In-Reply-To' => undef,
'Message-ID' => undef,
'From-Raw' => [ [ 'John B', undef, 'jb', 'abc.com' ] ],
'Sender-Raw' => [ [ 'John B', undef, 'jb', 'abc.com' ] ],
'Reply-To-Raw' => [ [ 'John B', undef, 'jb', 'abc.com' ] ],
'To-Raw' => [
[ 'Bob H', undef, 'bh', 'xyz.com' ],
[ 'K Jones', undef, 'kj', 'lmn.com' ],
],
'Cc-Raw' => [],
'Bcc-Raw' => [],
}
}
};
All the fields here are from straight from the email headers. See RFC822 for more details.
INTERNAL METHODS
_imap_cmd($Command, $IsUidCmd, $RespItems, @Args)
Executes a standard IMAP command.
Method arguments
$Command
Text string of command to call IMAP server with (e.g. 'select', 'search', etc).
$IsUidCmd
1 if command involved message ids and can be prefixed with UID, 0 otherwise.
$RespItems
Responses to look for from command (eg 'list', 'fetch', etc). Commands which return results usually return them untagged. The
following is an example of fetching flags from a number of messages.
C123 uid fetch 1:* (flags)
* 1 FETCH (FLAGS (Seen) UID 1)
* 2 FETCH (FLAGS (Seen) UID 2)
C123 OK Completed
Between the sending of the command and the 'OK Completed' response, we have to pick up all the untagged 'FETCH' response items so
we would pass 'fetch' (always use lower case) as the $RespItems to extract.
This can also be a hash ref of callback functions. See _parse_response for more examples
@Args
Any extra arguments to pass to command.
_send_cmd($Self, $Cmd, @InArgs)
Helper method used by the _imap_cmd method to actually build (and quote where necessary) the command arguments and then send the actual
command.
_send_data($Self, $Opts, $Buffer, @Args)
Helper method used by the _send_cmd method to actually build (and quote where necessary) the command arguments and then send the actual
command.
_parse_response($Self, $RespItems)
Helper method called by _imap_cmd after sending the command. This methods retrieves data from the IMAP socket and parses it into Perl
structures and returns the results.
$RespItems is either a string, which is the untagged response(s) to find and return, or for custom processing, it can be a hash ref.
If a hash ref, then each key will be an untagged response to look for, and each value a callback function to call for the corresponding
untagged response.
Each callback will be called with 2 or 3 arguments; the untagged response string, the remainder of the line parsed into an array ref,
and for fetch type responses, the id will be passed as the third argument.
One other piece of magic, if you pass a 'responseitem' key, then the value should be a string, and will be the untagged response
returned from the function
_require_capability($Self, $Capability)
Helper method which checks that the server has a certain capability. If not, it sets the internal last error, $@ and returns undef.
_trace($Self, $Line)
Helper method which outputs any tracing data.
_is_current_folder($Self, $FolderName)
Return true if a folder is currently selected and that folder is $FolderName
INTERNAL SOCKET FUNCTIONS
_next_atom($Self)
Returns the next atom from the current line. Uses $Self->{ReadLine} for line data, or if undef, fills it with a new line of data from
the IMAP connection socket and then begins processing.
If the next atom is:
o An unquoted string, simply returns the string.
o A quoted string, unquotes the string, changes any occurances of " to " and returns the string.
o A literal (e.g. {NBytes}
), reads the number of bytes of data in the literal into a scalar or file (depending on
"literal_handle_control").
o A bracketed structure, reads all the sub-atoms within the structure and returns an array reference with all the sub-atoms.
In each case, after parsing the atom, it removes any trailing space separator, and then returns the remainder of the line to
$Self->{ReadLine} ready for the next call to "_next_atom()".
_next_simple_atom($Self)
Faster version of _next_atom() for known simple cases
_remaining_atoms($Self)
Returns all the remaining atoms for the current line in the read line buffer as an array reference. Leaves $Self->{ReadLine} eq ''.
See "_next_atom()"
_remaining_line($Self)
Returns the remaining data in the read line buffer ($Self->{ReadLine}) as a scalar string/data value.
_fill_imap_read_buffer($Self)
Wait until data is available on the IMAP connection socket (or a timeout occurs). Read the data into the internal buffer
$Self->{ReadBuf}. You can then use "_imap_socket_read_line()", "_imap_socket_read_bytes()" or "_copy_imap_socket_to_handle()" to read
data from the buffer in lines or bytes at a time.
_imap_socket_read_line($Self)
Read a
terminated list from the buffered IMAP connection socket.
_imap_socket_read_bytes($Self, $NBytes)
Read a certain number of bytes from the buffered IMAP connection socket.
_imap_socket_out($Self, $Data)
Write the data in $Data to the IMAP connection socket.
_copy_handle_to_handle($Self, $InHandle $OutHandle, $NBytes)
Copy a given number of bytes from one handle to another.
The number of bytes specified ($NBytes) must be available on the IMAP socket, otherwise the function will 'die' with an error if it
runs out of data.
If $NBytes is not specified (undef), the function will attempt to seek to the end of the file to find the size of the file.
_copy_imap_socket_to_handle($Self, $OutHandle, $NBytes)
Copies data from the IMAP socket to a file handle. This is different to _copy_handle_to_handle() because we internally buffer the IMAP
socket so we can't just use it to copy from the socket handle, we have to copy the contents of our buffer first.
The number of bytes specified must be available on the IMAP socket, if the function runs out of data it will 'die' with an error.
_quote($String)
Returns an IMAP quoted version of a string. This place "..." around the string, and replaces any internal " with ".
INTERNAL PARSING FUNCTIONS
_parse_list_to_hash($ListRef, $Recursive)
Parses an array reference list of ($Key, $Value) pairs into a hash. Makes sure that all the keys are lower cased (lc) first.
_fix_folder_name($FolderName, $WildCard)
Changes a folder name based on the current root folder prefix as set with the "set_root_prefix()" call.
If $WildCard is true, then a folder name with % or * is left alone.
_unfix_folder_name($FolderName)
Unchanges a folder name based on the current root folder prefix as set with the "set_root_prefix()" call.
_fix_message_ids($MessageIds)
Used by IMAP commands to handle a number of different ways that message IDs can be specified.
Method arguments
$MessageIds
String or array ref which specified the message IDs or UIDs.
The $MessageIds parameter may take the following forms:
array ref
Array is turned into a string of comma separated ID numbers.
1:* Normally a * would result in the message ID string being quoted. This ensure that such a range string is not quoted because some
servers (e.g. cyrus) don't like.
_parse_email_address($EmailAddressList)
Converts a list of IMAP email address structures as parsed and returned from an IMAP fetch (envelope) call into a single RFC822 email
string (e.g. "Person 1 Name" <ename@ecorp.com>, "Person 2 Name" <...>, etc) to finally return to the user.
This is used to parse an envelope structure returned from a fetch call.
See the documentation section 'FETCH RESULTS' for more information.
_parse_envelope($Envelope, $IncludeRaw, $DecodeUTF8)
Converts an IMAP envelope structure as parsed and returned from an IMAP fetch (envelope) call into a convenient hash structure.
If $IncludeRaw is true, includes the XXX-Raw fields, otherwise these are left out.
If $DecodeUTF8 is true, then checks if the fields contain any quoted-printable chars, and decodes them to a Perl UTF8 string if they
do.
See the documentation section 'FETCH RESULTS' from more information.
_parse_bodystructure($BodyStructure, $IncludeRaw, $DecodeUTF8, $PartNum)
Parses a standard IMAP body structure and turns it into a Perl friendly nested hash structure. This routine is recursive and you should
not pass a value for $PartNum when called for the top level bodystructure item. Note that this routine destroys the array reference
structure passed in as $BodyStructure.
See the documentation section 'FETCH RESULTS' from more information
_parse_fetch_result($FetchResult)
Takes the result from a single IMAP fetch response line and parses it into a Perl friendly structure.
See the documentation section 'FETCH RESULTS' from more information.
_parse_header_result($HeaderResults, $Value, $FetchResult)
Take a body[header.fields (xyz)] fetch response and parse out the header fields and values
_decode_utf8($Value)
Decodes the passed quoted printable value to a Perl UTF8 string.
_expand_sequence(@Sequences)
Expand a list of IMAP id sequences into a full list of ids
PERL METHODS
DESTROY()
Called by Perl when this object is destroyed. Logs out of the IMAP server if still connected.
SEE ALSO
Net::IMAP, Mail::IMAPClient, IMAP::Admin, RFC2060
Latest news/details can also be found at:
http://cpan.robm.fastmail.fm/mailimaptalk/
Available on github at:
https://github.com/robmueller/mail-imaptalk/ <https://github.com/robmueller/mail-imaptalk/>
AUTHOR
Rob Mueller <cpan@robm.fastmail.fm>. Thanks to Jeremy Howard <j+daemonize@howard.fm> for socket code, support and documentation setup.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2003-2011 by Opera Software Australia Pty Ltd
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.12.4 2011-07-15 IMAPTalk(3pm)