Mail::Cap(3)						User Contributed Perl Documentation					      Mail::Cap(3)

NAME

       Mail::Cap - Parse mailcap files

SYNOPSIS

	my $mc = new Mail::Cap;
	$desc = $mc->description('image/gif');

	print "GIF desc: $desc
";
	$cmd = $mc->viewCmd('text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1', 'file.txt');

DESCRIPTION

       Parse mailcap files as specified in "RFC 1524 --A User Agent Configuration Mechanism For Multimedia Mail Format Information>.  In the
       description below $type refers to the MIME type as specified in the "Content-Type" header of mail or HTTP messages.  Examples of types are:

	 image/gif
	 text/html
	 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

       You could also take a look at the File::MimeInfo distribution, which are accessing tables which are used by many applications on a system,
       and therefore have succeeded the mail-cap specifications on modern (UNIX) systems.

METHODS

   Constructors
       Mail::Cap->new(OPTIONS)

	   Create and initialize a new Mail::Cap object.  If you give it an argument it will try to parse the specified file.  Without any
	   arguments it will search for the mailcap file using the standard mailcap path, or the MAILCAPS environment variable if it is defined.

	    Option  --Default
	    filename  undef
	    take      'FIRST'

	   . filename => FILENAME

	       Add the specified file to the list to standard locations.  This file is tried first.

	   . take => 'ALL'|'FIRST'

	       Include all mailcap files you can find.	By default, only the first file is parsed, however the RFC tells us to include ALL.  To
	       maintain backwards compatibility, the default only takes the FIRST.

	   example:

	     $mcap = new Mail::Cap;
	     $mcap = new Mail::Cap "/mydir/mailcap";
	     $mcap = new Mail::Cap filename => "/mydir/mailcap";
	     $mcap = new Mail::Cap take => 'ALL';
	     $mcap = Mail::Cap->new(take => 'ALL');

   Run commands
       These methods invoke a suitable progam presenting or manipulating the media object in the specified file.  They all return 1 if a command
       was found, and 0 otherwise.  You might test $? for the outcome of the command.

       $obj->compose(TYPE, FILE)

       $obj->edit(TYPE, FILE)

       $obj->print(TYPE, FILE)

       $obj->view(TYPE, FILE)

   Command creator
       These methods return a string that is suitable for feeding to system() in order to invoke a suitable progam presenting or manipulating the
       media object in the specified file.  It will return "undef" if no suitable specification exists.

       $obj->composeCmd(TYPE, FILE)

       $obj->editCmd(TYPE, FILE)

       $obj->printCmd(TYPE, FILE)

       $obj->viewCmd(TYPE, FILE)

   Look-up definitions
       Methods return the corresponding mailcap field for the type.

       $obj->description(TYPE)

       $obj->field(TYPE, FIELD)

	   Returns the specified field for the type.  Returns undef if no specification exsists.

       $obj->nametemplate(TYPE)

       $obj->textualnewlines(TYPE)

       $obj->x11_bitmap(TYPE)

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 2001-2007 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 v5.12.1							    2010-01-26							      Mail::Cap(3)