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

NAME

       Mail::Address - Parse mail addresses

SYNOPSIS

	use Mail::Address;
	my @addrs = Mail::Address->parse($line);

	foreach $addr (@addrs) {
	    print $addr->format,"
";
	}

DESCRIPTION

       "Mail::Address" extracts and manipulates email addresses from a message header.	It cannot be used to extract addresses from some random
       text.  You can use this module to create RFC822 compliant fields.

       Although "Mail::Address" is a very popular subject for books, and is used in many applications, it does a very poor job on the more complex
       message fields.	It does only handle simple address formats (which covers about 95% of what can be found). Problems are with

       o   no support for address groups, even not with the semi-colon as separator between addresses;

       o   limitted support for escapes in phrases and comments.  There are cases where it can get wrong; and

       o   you have to take care of most escaping when you create an address yourself: "Mail::Address" does not do that for you.

       Often requests are made to the maintainers of this code improve this situation, but this is not a good idea, where it will break zillions
       of existing applications.  If you wish for a fully RFC2822 compliant implementation you may take a look at Mail::Message::Field::Full, part
       of MailBox.

       example:

	 my $s = Mail::Message::Field::Full->parse($header);
	 # ref $s isa Mail::Message::Field::Addresses;

	 my @g = $s->groups;	      # all groups, at least one
	 # ref $g[0] isa Mail::Message::Field::AddrGroup;
	 my $ga = $g[0]->addresses;   # group addresses

	 my @a = $s->addresses;       # all addresses
	 # ref $a[0] isa Mail::Message::Field::Address;

METHODS

   Constructors
       Mail::Address->new(PHRASE, ADDRESS, [ COMMENT ])

	   Create a new "Mail::Address" object which represents an address with the elements given. In a message these 3 elements would be seen
	   like:

	    PHRASE <ADDRESS> (COMMENT)
	    ADDRESS (COMMENT)

	   example:

	    Mail::Address->new("Perl5 Porters", "perl5-porters@africa.nicoh.com");

       $obj->parse(LINE)

	   Parse the given line a return a list of extracted "Mail::Address" objects.  The line would normally be one taken from a To,Cc or Bcc
	   line in a message

	   example:

	    my @addr = Mail::Address->parse($line);

   Accessors
       $obj->address

	   Return the address part of the object.

       $obj->comment

	   Return the comment part of the object

       $obj->format([ADDRESSes])

	   Return a string representing the address in a suitable form to be placed on a "To", "Cc", or "Bcc" line of a message.  This method is
	   called on the first ADDRESS to be used; other specified ADDRESSes will be appended, separated with commas.

       $obj->phrase

	   Return the phrase part of the object.

   Smart accessors
       $obj->host

	   Return the address excluding the user id and '@'

       $obj->name

	   Using the information contained within the object attempt to identify what the person or groups name is.

       $obj->user

	   Return the address excluding the '@' and the mail domain

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::Address(3)