Mail::POP3Client - Perl 5 module to talk to a POP3 server

NAME

Mail::POP3Client - Perl 5 module to talk to a POP3 (RFC1939) server

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS

This module is not included with the standard ActivePerl distribution. It is available as a separate download using PPM.

SYNOPSIS

  use Mail::POP3Client;
  $pop = new Mail::POP3Client( USER     => "me",
                               PASSWORD => "mypassword",
                               HOST     => "pop3.do.main" );
  for( $i = 1; $i <= $pop->Count(); $i++ ) {
    foreach( $pop->Head( $i ) ) {
      /^(From|Subject):\s+/i && print $_, "\n";
    }
  }
  $pop->Close();
  # OR
  $pop2 = new Mail::POP3Client( HOST  => "pop3.otherdo.main" );
  $pop2->User( "somebody" );
  $pop2->Pass( "doublesecret" );
  $pop2->Connect() || die $pop2->Message();
  $pop2->Close();

DESCRIPTION

This module implements an Object-Oriented interface to a POP3 server. It implements RFC1939 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1939.html)

EXAMPLES

Here is a simple example to list out the From: and Subject: headers in your remote mailbox:

  #!/usr/local/bin/perl


  use Mail::POP3Client;

  $pop = new Mail::POP3Client( USER     => "me",
                               PASSWORD => "mypassword",
                               HOST     => "pop3.do.main" );
  for ($i = 1; $i <= $pop->Count(); $i++) {
    foreach ( $pop->Head( $i ) ) {
      /^(From|Subject):\s+/i and print $_, "\n";
    }
    print "\n";
  }

CONSTRUCTORS

Old style (deprecated): new Mail::POP3Client( USER, PASSWORD [, HOST, PORT, DEBUG, AUTH_MODE] );

New style (shown with defaults): new Mail::POP3Client( USER => ``'', PASSWORD => ``'', HOST => ``pop3'', PORT => 110, AUTH_MODE => 'PASS', DEBUG => 0, TIMEOUT => 60, );

METHODS

These commands are intended to make writing a POP3 client easier. They do not necessarily map directly to POP3 commands defined in RFC1081 or RFC1939, although all commands should be supported. Some commands return multiple lines as an array in an array context.

new( USER => 'user', PASSWORD => 'password', HOST => 'host', PORT => 110, DEBUG => 0, AUTH_MODE => 'PASS', TIMEOUT => 60 )
Construct a new POP3 connection with this. You should use the hash-style constructor. The old positional constructor is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. It is strongly recommended that you convert your code to the new version.

You should give it at least 2 arguments: USER and PASSWORD. The default HOST is 'pop3' which may or may not work for you. You can specify a different PORT (be careful here).

new will attempt to Connect to and Login to the POP3 server if you supply a USER and PASSWORD. If you do not supply them in the constructor, you will need to call Connect yourself.

The valid values for AUTH_MODE are 'PASS' and 'APOP'. APOP implies that an MD5 checksum will be used instrad of passing your password in cleartext. However, if the server does not support APOP, the cleartext method will be used. Be careful.

If you enable debugging with DEBUG => 1, messages about command will go to STDERR.

Another warning, it's impossible to differentiate between a timeout and a failure.

Head( MESSAGE_NUMBER )
Get the headers of the specified message, either as an array or as a string, depending on context.

You can also specify a number of preview lines which will be returned with the headers. This may not be supported by all POP3 server implementations as it is marked as optional in the RFC. Submitted by Dennis Moroney <dennis@hub.iwl.net>.

Body( MESSAGE_NUMBER )
Get the body of the specified message, either as an array of lines or as a string, depending on context.

HeadAndBody( MESSAGE_NUMBER [, PREVIEW_LINES ] )
Get the head and body of the specified message, either as an array of lines or as a string, depending on context.
Example
foreach ( $pop->HeadAndBody( 1, 10 ) ) print $_, ``\n'';

prints out a preview of each message, with the full header and the first 10 lines of the message (if supported by the POP3 server).

Retrieve( MESSAGE_NUMBER )
Same as HeadAndBody.

Delete( MESSAGE_NUMBER )
Mark the specified message number as DELETED. Becomes effective upon QUIT. Can be reset with a Reset message.

Connect
Start the connection to the POP3 server. You can pass in the host and port.

Close
Close the connection gracefully. POP3 says this will perform any pending deletes on the server.

Alive
Return true or false on whether the connection is active.

Socket
Return the file descriptor for the socket.

Size
Set/Return the size of the remote mailbox. Set by POPStat.

Count
Set/Return the number of remote messages. Set during Login.

Message
The last status message received from the server.

State
The internal state of the connection: DEAD, AUTHORIZATION, TRANSACTION.

POPStat
Return the results of a POP3 STAT command. Sets the size of the mailbox.

List
Return a list of sizes of each message.

ListArray
Return a list of sizes of each message. This returns an indexed array, with each message number as an index (starting from 1) and the value as the next entry on the line. Beware that some servers send additional info for each message for the list command. That info may be lost.

Uidl( [MESSAGE_NUMBER] )
Return the unique ID for the given message (or all of them). Returns an indexed array with an entry for each valid message number. Indexing begins at 1 to coincide with the server's indexing.

Last
Return the number of the last message, retrieved from the server.

Reset
Tell the server to unmark any message marked for deletion.

User( [USER_NAME] )
Set/Return the current user name.

Pass( [PASSWORD] )
Set/Return the current user name.

Login
Attempt to login to the server connection.

Host( [HOSTNAME] )
Set/Return the current host.

Port( [PORT_NUMBER] )
Set/Return the current port number.

AUTHOR

Sean Dowd <pop3client@dowds.net>

CREDITS

Based loosely on News::NNTPClient by Rodger Anderson <rodger@boi.hp.com>.

SEE ALSO

perl(1).

 Mail::POP3Client - Perl 5 module to talk to a POP3 server