# phpman > info > Mail::Address Mail::[Address(3pm)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Address/3pm/markdown) User Contributed Perl Documentation Mail::[Address(3pm)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Address/3pm/markdown) NAME [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown) - parse mail addresses SYNOPSIS use [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown); my @addrs = [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->parse($line); foreach $addr (@addrs) { print $addr->format,"\n"; } DESCRIPTION "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" 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](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" 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 limited 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](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" 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](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AFull/markdown), part of MailBox. . Example my $s = [Mail::Message::Field::Full](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AFull/markdown)->new($from_header); # ref $s isa [Mail::Message::Field::Addresses](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddresses/markdown); my @g = $s->groups; # all groups, at least one # ref $g[0] isa [Mail::Message::Field::AddrGroup](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddrGroup/markdown); my $ga = $g[0]->addresses; # group addresses my @a = $s->addresses; # all addresses # ref $a[0] isa [Mail::Message::Field::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddress/markdown); METHODS Constructors [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->new( $phrase, $address, [ $comment ] ) Create a new "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" object which represents an address with the elements given. In a message these 3 elements would be seen like: PHRASE
(COMMENT) ADDRESS (COMMENT) example: [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->new("Perl5 Porters", ""); $obj->parse($line) Parse the given line a return a list of extracted "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" objects. The line would normally be one taken from a To,Cc or Bcc line in a message example: my @addr = [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->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 by 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. Note: This function tries to be smart with the "phrase" of the email address, which is probably a very bad idea. Consider to use phrase() itself. $obj->user() Return the address excluding the '@' and the mail domain SEE ALSO This module is part of the MailTools distribution, . AUTHORS The MailTools bundle was developed by Graham Barr. Later, Mark Overmeer took over maintenance without commitment to further development. [Mail::Cap](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3ACap/markdown) by Gisle Aas <>. [Mail::Field::AddrList](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddrList/markdown) by Peter Orbaek <>. [Mail::Mailer](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMailer/markdown) and [Mail::Send](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3ASend/markdown) by Tim Bunce <>. For other contributors see ChangeLog. LICENSE Copyrights 1995-2000 Graham Barr <> and 2001-2017 Mark Overmeer <>. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perl v5.28.1 2019-07-25 Mail::[Address(3pm)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Address/3pm/markdown)