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Mail::POP3Client(3pm) User Contributed Perl DocumentationMail::POP3Client(3pm)

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

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 with SSL
         $pop = new Mail::POP3Client( USER     => "me",
                                      PASSWORD => "mypassword",
                                      HOST     => "pop3.do.main",
                                      USESSL   => true,
                                    );

         # OR
         $pop2 = new Mail::POP3Client( HOST  => "pop3.otherdo.main" );
         $pop2->User( "somebody" );
         $pop2->Pass( "doublesecret" );
         $pop2->Connect() >= 0 || die $pop2->Message();
         $pop2->Close();

         # OR to use your own SSL socket...
         my $socket = IO::Socket::SSL->new( PeerAddr => 'pop.securedo.main',
                                            PeerPort => 993,
                                            Proto    => 'tcp') || die "No socket!";
         my $pop = Mail::POP3Client->new();
         $pop->User('somebody');
         $pop->Pass('doublesecret');
         $pop->Socket($socket);
         $pop->Connect();

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 => 'BEST',
                                DEBUG     => 0,
                                TIMEOUT   => 60,
                                LOCALADDR => 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx[:xx]',
                                SOCKET => undef,
                                USESSL => 0,
                              );

       o   USER is the userID of the account on the POP server

       o   PASSWORD is the cleartext password for the userID

       o   HOST is the POP server name or IP address (default = 'pop3')

       o   PORT is the POP server port (default = 110)

       o   DEBUG - any non-null, non-zero value turns on debugging (default =
           0)

       o   AUTH_MODE - pass 'APOP' to force APOP (MD5) authorization. (default
           is 'BEST')

       o   TIMEOUT - set a timeout value for socket operations (default = 60)

       o   LOCALADDR - allow selecting a local inet address to use

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 => 'BEST', TIMEOUT => 60,, LOCALADDR =>
       'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx[:xx]', SOCKET => undef, USESSL => 0 ) )
               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 'BEST', 'PASS', 'APOP' and
               'CRAM-MD5'.  BEST says to try APOP if the server appears to
               support it and it can be used to successfully log on, next try
               similarly with CRAM-MD5, and finally revert to PASS. APOP and
               CRAM-MD5 imply that an MD5 checksum will be used instead of
               sending your password in cleartext.  However, if the server
               does not claim to support APOP or CRAM-MD5, the cleartext
               method will be used. Be careful. There are a few servers that
               will send a timestamp in the banner greeting, but APOP will not
               work with them (for instance if the server does not know your
               password in cleartext).  If you think your authentication
               information is correct, run in DEBUG mode and look for errors
               regarding authorization.  If so, then you may have to use
               'PASS' for that server.  The same applies to CRAM-MD5, too.

               If you enable debugging with DEBUG => 1, socket traffic will be
               echoed to STDERR.

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

               If you pass a true value for USESSL, the port will be changed
               to 995 if it is not set or is 110.  Otherwise, it will use your
               port.  If USESSL is true, IO::Socket::SSL will be loaded.  If
               it is not in your perl, the call to connect will fail.

               new returns a valid Mail::POP3Client object in all cases.  To
               test for a connection failure, you will need to check the
               number of messages: -1 indicates a connection error.  This will
               likely change sometime in the future to return undef on an
               error, setting $! as a side effect.  This change will not
               happen in any 2.x version.

       Head( MESSAGE_NUMBER [, PREVIEW_LINES ] )
               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 AT hub.net>.

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

       BodyToFile( FILE_HANDLE, MESSAGE_NUMBER )
               Get the body of the specified message and write it to the given
               file handle.  my $fh = new IO::Handle(); $fh->fdopen( fileno(
               STDOUT ), "w" ); $pop->BodyToFile( $fh, 1 );

               Does no stripping of NL or CR.

       HeadAndBody( MESSAGE_NUMBER )
               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 ) )
                      print $_, "\n";

                   prints out the complete text of message 1.

       HeadAndBodyToFile( FILE_HANDLE, MESSAGE_NUMBER )
               Get the head and body of the specified message and write it to
               the given file handle.  my $fh = new IO::Handle(); $fh->fdopen(
               fileno( STDOUT ), "w" ); $pop->HeadAndBodyToFile( $fh, 1 );

               Does no stripping of NL or CR.

       Retrieve( MESSAGE_NUMBER )
               Same as HeadAndBody.

       RetrieveToFile( FILE_HANDLE, MESSAGE_NUMBER )
               Same as HeadAndBodyToFile.

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

       Connect Start the connection to the POP3 server.  You can pass in the
               host and port.  Returns 1 if the connection succeeds, or 0 if
               it fails (Message will contain a reason).  The constructor
               always returns a blessed reference to a Mail::POP3Client
               obhect.  This may change in a version 3.x release, but never in
               a 2.x release.

       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, or set if supplied.

       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 or a message
               describing any problem encountered.

       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([message_number])
               Returns the size of the given message number when called with
               an argument using the following format:

                  <message_number> <size_in_bytes>

               If message_number is omitted, List behaves the same as
               ListArray, returning an indexed array of the sizes of each
               message in the same format.

               You can parse the size in bytes using split:
                ($msgnum, $size) = split('\s+', $pop -> List( n ));

       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.

       Capa    Query server capabilities, as described in RFC 2449. Returns
               the capabilities in an array. Valid in all states.

       XTND    Optional extended commands.  Transaction state only.

       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.

IMAP COMPATIBILITY
       Basic Mail::IMAPClient method calls are also supported: close, connect,
       login, message_string, Password, and unseen.  Also, empty stubs are
       provided for Folder, folders, Peek, select, and Uid.

REQUIREMENTS
       This module does not have mandatory requirements for modules that are
       not part of the standard Perl distribution. However, APOP needs need
       Digest::MD5 and CRAM-MD5 needs Digest::HMAC_MD5 and MIME::Base64.

AUTHOR
       Sean Dowd <pop3client AT dowds.net>

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

CREDITS
       Based loosely on News::NNTPClient by Rodger Anderson
       <rodger AT boi.com>.

SEE ALSO
       perl(1)

       the Digest::MD5 manpage, the Digest::HMAC_MD5 manpage, the MIME::Base64
       manpage

       RFC 1939: Post Office Protocol - Version 3

       RFC 2195: IMAP/POP AUTHorize Extension for Simple Challenge/Response

       RFC 2449: POP3 Extension Mechanism

perl v5.32.0                      2020-12-28             Mail::POP3Client(3pm)