NAME

Mail::Folder::Mbox - A Unix mbox interface for Mail::Folder.

WARNING: This code is in alpha release. Expect the interface to change.

SYNOPSYS

use Mail::Folder::Mbox;

DESCRIPTION

This module provides an interface to unix mbox folders.

The mbox folder format is the standard monolithic folder structure prevalent on Unix. A single folder is contained within a single file. Each message starts with a line matching /^From / and ends with a blank line.

The folder architecture does not provide any persistantly stored current message variable, so the current message in this folder interface defaults to 1 and is not retained between opens of a folder.

If a Timeout option is specified when the object is created, that value will be used to determine the timeout for attempting to aquire a folder lock. The default is 10 seconds.

METHODS

open($folder_name)

• Call the superclass open method.

• Check to see if it is a valid mbox folder.

• Mark it as readonly if the folder is not writable.

• Lock the folder.

• Split the folder into individual messages in a temporary working directory.

• Unlock the folder.

• Cache all the headers.

• Update the appropriate labels with information in the Status fields.

• Set current_message to 1.

close

Deletes the internal working copy of the folder and calls the superclass close method.

sync

• Call the superclass sync method.

• Lock the folder.

• Extract into the temporary working directory any new messages that have been appended to the folder since the last time the folder was either opened or synced.

• Create a new copy of the folder and populate it with the messages in the working copy that are not flagged for deletion and update the Status fields appropriately.

• Move the original folder to a temp location

• Move the new folder into place

• Delete the old original folder

• Unlock the folder

pack

Calls the superclass pack method.

Renames the message list to that there are no gaps in the numbering sequence.

It also tweaks the current_message accordingly.

get_message ($msg_number)

Calls the superclass get_message method.

Retrieves the given mail message file into a Mail::Internet object reference, sets the 'seen' label, and returns the reference.

If the 'Content-Length' option is not set, then get_message will unescape 'From ' lines in the body of the message.

get_message_file ($msg_number)

Calls the superclass get_message_file method.

Retrieves the given mail message file and returns the name of the file.

Returns undef on failure.

This method does NOT currently do any 'From ' unescaping.

get_header($msg_number)

If the particular header has never been retrieved then get_header loads (in a manner similar to get_message) the header of the given mail message into $self->{Messages}{$msg_number}{Header} and returns the object reference.

If the header for the given mail message has already been retrieved in a prior call to get_header, then the cached entry is returned.

It also calls the superclass get_header method.

append_message($mref)

Calls the superclass append_message method.

Creates a new mail message file, in the temporary working directory, with the contents of the mail message contained in $mref. It will synthesize a 'From ' line if one is not present in $mref.

If the 'Content-Length' option is not set, then get_message will escape 'From ' lines in the body of the message.

update_message($msg_number, $mref)

Calls the superclass update_message method.

Replaces the message pointed to by $msg_number with the contents of the Mail::Internet object reference $mref.

It will synthesize a 'From ' line if one is not present in $mref.

If the 'Content-Length' option is not set, then get_message will escape 'From ' lines in the body of the message.

init

Initializes various items specific to Mbox.

• Determines an appropriate temporary directory. If the TMPDIR environment variable is set, it uses that, otherwise it uses /tmp. The working directory will be a subdirectory in that directory.

• Bumps a sequence number used for unique temporary filenames.

• Initializes $self->{WorkingDir} to the name of a directory that will be used to hold the working copies of the messages in the folder.

is_valid_folder_format($foldername)

Returns 1 is the folder is a plain file and starts with the string 'From '.

There is one small sniggle here. If the folder is a file and is zero size, it returns 1. This may or may not cause problems with other folder formats that are based on a large flat file.

create($foldername)

Creates a new folder named $foldername. Returns 0 if the folder already exists, otherwise returns 1.

AUTHOR

Kevin Johnson <kjj@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1996-1997 Kevin Johnson <kjj@pobox.com>.

All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm Mail::Folder

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Mail::Folder