NAME

Mail::Internet - manipulate Internet format (RFC 822) mail messages

SYNOPSIS

use Mail::Internet;

DESCRIPTION

This package provides a class object which can be used for reading, creating, manipulating and writing a message with RFC822 compliant headers.

CONSTRUCTOR

new ( [ ARG ], [ OPTIONS ] )

ARG is optiona and may be either a file descriptor (reference to a GLOB) or a reference to an array. If given the new object will be initialized with headers either from the array of read from the file descriptor.

OPTIONS is a list of options given in the form of key-value pairs, just like a hash table. Valid options are

Header

The value of this option should be a Mail::Header object. If given then Mail::Internet will not attempt to read a mail header from ARG, if it was specified.

Body

The value of this option should be a reference to an array which contains the lines for the body of the message. If given then Mail::Internet will not attempt to read the body from ARG, if it was specified.

The Mail::Header options Modify, MailFrom and FoldLength may also be given.

METHODS

body ()

Returns the body of the message. This is a reference to an array. Each entry in the array represents a single line in the message.

print_header ( [ FILEHANDLE ] )

print_body ( [ FILEHANDLE ] )

print ( [ FILEHANDLE ] )

Print the header, body or whole message to file descriptor FILEHANDLE. $fd should be a reference to a GLOB. If FILEHANDLE is not given the output will be sent to STDOUT.

$mail->print( \*STDOUT );  # Print message to STDOUT

head ()

Returns the Mail::Header object which holds the headers for the current message

UTILITY METHODS

The following methods are more a utility type than a manipulation type of method.

remove_sig ( [ NLINES ] )

Attempts to remove a users signature from the body of a message. It does this by looking for a line equal to '-- ' within the last NLINES of the message. If found then that line and all lines after it will be removed. If NLINES is not given a default value of 10 will be used. This would be of most use in auto-reply scripts.

tidy_body ()

Removes all leading and trailing lines from the body that only contain white spaces.

reply ()

Create a new object with header initialised for a reply to the current object. And the body will be a copy of the current message indented.

add_signature ( [ FILE ] )

Append a signature to the message. FILE is a file which contains the signature, if not given then the file "$ENV{HOME}/.signature" will be checked for.

smtpsend ()

Send a Mail::Internet message via SMTP

The message will be sent to all addresses on the To, Cc and Bcc lines. The SMTP host is found by attempting connections first to hosts specified in $ENV{SMTPHOSTS}, a colon separated list, then mailhost and localhost.

nntppost ()

Post an article via NNTP, require News::NNTPClient.

escape_from ()

It can cause problems with some applications if a message contains a line starting with `From ', in particular when attempting to split a folder. This method inserts a leading `'> on anyline starting with `From '

unescape_from ()

This method will remove the escaping added bu escape_from

SEE ALSO

Mail::Header Mail::Address

AUTHOR

Graham Barr <gbarr@ti.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1995 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.