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Mail::IMAPClient(3pm) User Contributed Perl Documentation Mail::IMAPClient(3pm)
NAME
Mail::IMAPClient - An IMAP Client API
SYNOPSIS
use Mail::IMAPClient;
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
Server => 'localhost',
User => 'username',
Password => 'password',
Ssl => 1,
Uid => 1,
);
my $folders = $imap->folders
or die "List folders error: ", $imap->LastError, "\n";
print "Folders: @$folders\n";
$imap->select( $Opt{folder} )
or die "Select '$Opt{folder}' error: ", $imap->LastError, "\n";
$imap->fetch_hash("FLAGS", "INTERNALDATE", "RFC822.SIZE")
or die "Fetch hash '$Opt{folder}' error: ", $imap->LastError, "\n";
$imap->logout
or die "Logout error: ", $imap->LastError, "\n";
DESCRIPTION
This module provides methods implementing the IMAP protocol to support interacting with
IMAP message stores.
The module is used by constructing or instantiating a new IMAPClient object via the "new"
constructor method. Once the object has been instantiated, the "connect" method is either
implicitly or explicitly called. At that point methods are available that implement the
IMAP client commands as specified in RFC3501. When processing is complete, the "logout"
object method should be called.
This documentation is not meant to be a replacement for RFC3501 nor any other IMAP related
RFCs.
Note that this documentation uses the term folder in place of RFC3501's use of mailbox.
This documentation reserves the use of the term mailbox to refer to the set of folders
owned by a specific IMAP id.
Connection State
RFC3501 defines four possible states for an IMAP connection: not authenticated,
authenticated, selected, and logged out. These correspond to the IMAPClient constants
"Connected", "Authenticated", "Selected", and "Unconnected", respectively. These
constants can be used in conjunction with the "Status" method to determine the status of
an IMAPClient object and its underlying IMAP session.
Note that an IMAPClient object can be in the "Unconnected" state both before a server
connection is made and after it has ended. This differs slightly from RFC3501, which does
not define a pre-connection status. For a discussion of the methods available for
examining the IMAPClient object's status, see the section labeled "Status Methods", below.
Advanced Authentication Mechanisms
RFC3501 defines two commands for authenticating to an IMAP server:
LOGIN
LOGIN is for plain text authentication.
AUTHENTICATE
AUTHENTICATE for more advanced and/or secure authentication mechanisms.
Mail::IMAPClient supports the following AUTHENTICATE mechanisms:
DIGEST-MD5
DIGEST-MD5 authentication requires the Authen::SASL and Digest::MD5 modules. See also
"Authuser".
CRAM-MD5
CRAM-MD5 requires the Digest::HMAC_MD5 module.
PLAIN (SASL)
PLAIN (SASL) authentication allows the optional use of the "Proxy" parameter. RFC
4616 documents this syntax for SASL PLAIN:
message = [authzid] UTF8NUL authcid UTF8NUL passwd
When "Proxy" is defined, "User" is used as 'authzid' and "Proxy" is used as 'authcid'.
Otherwise, "User" is used as 'authcid'.
NTLM
NTLM authentication requires the Authen::NTLM module. See also "Domain".
Errors
If you attempt an operation that results in an error, then you can retrieve the text of
the error message by using the "LastError" method. However, the "LastError" method is an
object method (not a class method) and can only be used once an object is successfully
created. In cases where an object is not successfully created the $@ variable is set with
an error message.
Mail::IMAPClient resets $@ and "LastError" to undef before most IMAP requests, so the
values only have a short lifespan. "LastError" will always contain error info from the
last error, until another error is encountered, another IMAP command is issued or it is
explicitly cleared.
Please note that the use of $@ is subject to change in the future release so it is best to
use "LastError" for error checking once a Mail::IMAPClient object has been created.
Errors in the "new" method can prevent your object from ever being created. If the
"Server", "User", and "Password" parameters are supplied to "new", it will attempt to call
"connect" and "login". Any of these methods could fail and cause the "new" method call to
return "undef" and leaving the variable $@ is set to an error message.
WARNING: (due to historical API behavior) on errors, many methods may return undef
regardless of LIST/SCALAR context. Therefore, it may be wise to use most methods in a
scalar context. Regardless, check "LastError" for details on errors.
Transactions
RFC3501 requires that each line in an IMAP conversation be prefixed with a tag. A typical
conversation consists of the client issuing a tag-prefixed command string, and the server
replying with one of more lines of output. Those lines of output will include a command
completion status code prefixed by the same tag as the original command string.
The IMAPClient module uses a simple counter to ensure that each client command is issued
with a unique tag value. This tag value is referred to by the IMAPClient module as the
transaction number. A history is maintained by the IMAPClient object documenting each
transaction. The "Transaction" method returns the number of the last transaction, and can
be used to retrieve lines of text from the object's history.
The "Clear" parameter is used to control the size of the session history so that long-
running sessions do not eat up unreasonable amounts of memory. See the discussion of
"Clear" parameter for more information.
The "Report" transaction returns the history of the entire IMAP session since the initial
connection or for the last "Clear" transactions. This provides a record of the entire
conversation, including client command strings and server responses, and is a wonderful
debugging tool as well as a useful source of raw data for custom parsing.
CLASS METHODS
There are a couple of methods that can be invoked as class methods. Generally they can be
invoked as an object method as well. Note that if the "new" method is called as an object
method, the object returned is identical to what have would been returned if "new" had
been called as a class method. It doesn't give you a copy of the original object.
new
Example:
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(%args)
or die "new failed: $@\n";
The "new" method creates a new instance of an IMAPClient object.
If the "Server" parameter is passed as an argument to new, then new will implicitly call
the "connect" method, placing the new object in the Connected state. If "User" and
"Password" values are also provided, then "connect" will in turn call "login", and the
resulting object will be returned from new in the Authenticated state.
If the "Server" parameter is not supplied then the IMAPClient object is created in the
Unconnected state.
If the new method is passed arguments then those arguments will be treated as a list of
key=>value pairs. The key should be one of the parameters as documented under
"Parameters" below.
Here are some examples:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
# returns an unconnected Mail::IMAPClient object:
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new;
# ...
# intervening code using the 1st object, then:
# (returns a new, authenticated Mail::IMAPClient object)
$imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
Server => $host,
User => $id,
Password => $pass,
Clear => 5, # Unnecessary since '5' is the default
# ... # Other key=>value pairs go here
) or die "Cannot connect to $host as $id: $@";
See also "Parameters", "connect" and "login" for more information on how to manually
connect and login after new.
Quote
Example:
$imap->search( HEADER => 'Message-id' => \$imap->Quote($msg_id) );
The Quote method accepts a value as an argument and returns its argument as a correctly
quoted string or a literal string. Since version 3.17 Mail::IMAPClient automatically
quotes search arguments we use a SCALARREF so search will not modify or re-quote the value
returned by Quote.
Note this method should not be used on folder names for Mail::IMAPClient methods, since
methods that accept folder names as an argument will quote the folder name arguments
automatically.
If you are getting unexpected results when running methods with values that have (or might
have) embedded spaces, double quotes, braces, or parentheses, then calling Quote may be
necessary. This method should not be used with arguments that are wrapped in quotes or
parens if those quotes or parens are required by RFC3501. For example, if the RFC
requires an argument in this format:
( argument )
and the argument is (or might be) "pennies (from heaven)", then one could use:
$argument = "(" . $imap->Quote($argument) . ")"
Of course, the fact that sometimes these characters are sometimes required delimiters is
precisely the reason you must quote them when they are not delimiting.
However, there are times when a method fails unexpectedly and may require the use of Quote
to work. Should this happen, you can probably file a bug/enhancement request for
Mail::IMAPClient to safeguard the particular call/case better.
An example is RFC822 Message-id's, which usually don't contain quotes or parens. When
dealing with these it is usually best to take proactive, defensive measures from the very
start and use Quote.
Range
Example:
my $parsed = $imap->parse_headers(
$imap->Range( $imap->messages ), "Date", "Subject"
);
The Range method will condense a list of message sequence numbers or message UID's into
the most compact format supported by RFC3501. It accepts one or more arguments, each of
which can be:
a) a message number,
b) a comma-separated list of message numbers,
c) a colon-separated range of message numbers (i.e. "$begin:$end")
d) a combination of messages and message ranges, separated by commas (i.e. 1,3,5:8,10), or
e) a reference to an array whose elements are like a) through d).
The Range method returns a Mail::IMAPClient::MessageSet object. The object uses overload
and if treated as a string it will act like a string. This means you can ignore its
objectivity and just treat it like a string whose value is your message set expressed in
compact format.
This method provides an easy way to add or remove messages from a message set.
For more information see Mail::IMAPClient::MessageSet.
Rfc3501_date
Example:
$Rfc3501_date = $imap->Rfc3501_date($seconds);
# or:
$Rfc3501_date = Mail::IMAPClient->Rfc3501_date($seconds);
The Rfc3501_date method accepts one input argument, a number of seconds since the epoch
date. It returns an RFC3501 compliant date string for that date (as required in date-
related arguments to SEARCH, such as "since", "before", etc.).
Rfc3501_datetime
Example:
$date = $imap->Rfc3501_datetime($seconds);
# or:
$date = Mail::IMAPClient->Rfc3501_datetime($seconds);
The Rfc3501_datetime method accepts one or two arguments: a obligatory timestamp and an
optional zone. The zone shall be formatted as "[+-]\d{4}", and defaults to +0000. The
timestamp follows the definition of the output of the platforms specific "time", usually
in seconds since Jan 1st 1970. However, you have to correct the number yourself for the
zone.
Rfc822_date
Example:
$Rfc822_date = $imap->Rfc822_date($seconds);
# or:
$Rfc822_date = Mail::IMAPClient->Rfc822_date($seconds);
The Rfc822_date method accepts one input argument, a number of seconds since the epoch
date. It returns an RFC822 compliant date string for that date (without the 'Date:'
prefix). Useful for putting dates in message strings before calling "append", "search",
etc.
Strip_cr
Examples:
my $stripped = $imap->Strip_cr($string);
# or:
my @list = $imap->some_imap_method;
@list = $imap->Strip_cr(@list);
# or:
my $list = [ $imap->some_imap_method ]; # returns an array ref
$list = $imap->Strip_cr($list);
The Strip_cr method strips carriage returns from input and returns the new string to the
caller. This method accepts one or more lines of text as arguments, and returns those
lines with all <CR><LF> sequences changed to <LF>. Any input argument with no carriage
returns is returned unchanged. If the first argument (not counting the class name or
object reference) is an array reference, then members of that array are processed as above
and subsequent arguments are ignored. If the method is called in scalar context then an
array reference is returned instead of an array of results.
NOTE: Strip_cr does not remove new line characters.
OBJECT METHODS
Object methods must be invoked against objects created via the "new" method and cannot be
invoked as class methods.
There object methods typically fall into one of two categories. There are mailbox methods
which participate in the IMAP session's conversation (i.e. they issue IMAP client
commands) and object control methods which do not result in IMAP commands but which may
affect later commands or provide details of previous ones.
This object control methods can be further broken down into two types, Parameter accessor
methods, which affect the behavior of future mailbox methods, and "Status Methods", which
report on the affects of previous mailbox methods.
Methods that do not result in new IMAP client commands being issued (such as the
"Transaction", "Status", and "History" methods) all begin with an uppercase letter, to
distinguish them from methods that do correspond to IMAP client commands. Class methods
and eponymous parameter methods likewise begin with an uppercase letter because they also
do not correspond to an IMAP client command.
As a general rule, mailbox control methods return "undef" on failure and something besides
"undef" when they succeed. This rule is modified in the case of methods that return
search results. When called in a list context, searches that do not find matching results
return an empty list. When called in a scalar context, searches with no hits return
'undef' instead of an array reference. If you want to know why you received no hits, you
should check "LastError" or $@, which will be empty if the search was successful but had
no matching results but populated with an error message if the search encountered a
problem (such as invalid parameters).
A number of IMAP commands do not have corresponding Mail::IMAPClient methods. Patches are
welcome. In the pre-2.99 releases of this module, they were automatically created
(AUTOLOAD), but that was very error-prone and stalled the progress of this module.
Mailbox Control Methods
append
Example:
my $uid_or_true = $imap->append( $folder, $msgtext )
or die "Could not append: ", $imap->LastError;
WARNING: This method may be deprecated in the future, consider using "append_string"
instead of this method.
The append method adds a message to the specified folder. See "append_string" for details
as it is effectively an alias for that method.
DEPRECATED BEHAVIOR: Additional arguments are added to the message text, separated with
<CR><LF>.
append_string
Example:
# brackets indicate optional arguments (not array refs):
my $uidort = $imap->append_string( $folder, $msgtext [,$flags [,$date ] ] )
or die "Could not append_string: ", $imap->LastError;
Arguments:
$folder
the name of the folder to append the message to
$msgtext
the message text (including headers) of the message
$flags
An optional list of flags to set. The list must be specified as a space-separated
list of flags, including any backslashes that may be necessary and optionally enclosed
by parenthesis.
$date
An optional RFC3501 date argument to set as the internal date. It should be in the
format described for date_time fields in RFC3501, i.e. "dd-Mon-yyyy hh:mm:ss +0000".
If you want to specify a date/time but you don't want any flags then specify undef as
the third ($flags) argument.
Returns:
error: undef
On error, undef can be returned regardless of LIST/SCALAR context. Check "LastError"
for details.
success: UID or $imap
With UIDPLUS the UID of the new message is returned otherwise a true value (currently
$self) is returned.
To protect against "bare newlines", append will insert a carriage return before any
newline that is "bare".
append_file
Example:
my $new_msg_uid = $imap->append_file(
$folder,
$file,
[ undef, $flags, $date ] # optional
) or die "Could not append_file: ", $imap->LastError;
The append_file method adds a message to the specified folder. Note: The brackets in the
example indicate optional arguments; they do not mean that the argument should be an array
reference.
Arguments:
$folder
the name of the folder to append the message to
$file
a filename, filehandle or SCALAR reference which holds an RFC822-formatted message
undef
a deprecated argument used as a place holder for backwards compatibility
$flags
The optional argument is handled the same as append_string.
$date
The optional argument is handled the same as append_string (RFC3501 date), with the
exception that if $date is "1" (one) then the modification time (mtime) of the file
will be used.
Returns:
error: undef
On error, undef can be returned regardless of LIST/SCALAR context. Check "LastError"
for details.
success: UID or $imap
With UIDPLUS the UID of the new message is returned otherwise a true value (currently
$self) is returned.
To protect against "bare newlines", append_file will insert a carriage return before any
newline that is "bare".
The append_file method provides a mechanism for allowing large messages to be appended
without holding the whole file in memory.
Version note: In 2.x an optional third argument to use for "input_record_separator" was
allowed, however this argument is ignored/not supported as of 3.x.
authenticate
Example:
$imap->authenticate( $authentication_mechanism, $coderef )
or die "Could not authenticate: ", $imap->LastError;
This method implements the AUTHENTICATE IMAP client command. It can be called directly or
may be called by "login" if the "Authmechanism" parameter is set to anything except
'LOGIN'.
The authenticate method accepts two arguments, an authentication type to be used (ie
CRAM-MD5) and a code or subroutine reference to execute to obtain a response. The
authenticate method assumes that the authentication type specified in the first argument
follows a challenge-response flow. The authenticate method issues the IMAP Client
AUTHENTICATE command and receives a challenge from the server. That challenge (minus any
tag prefix or enclosing '+' characters but still in the original base64 encoding) is
passed as the only argument to the code or subroutine referenced in the second argument.
The return value from the 2nd argument's code is written to the server as is, except that
a <CR><LF> sequence is appended if necessary.
If one or both of the arguments are not specified in the call to authenticate but their
corresponding parameters have been set ("Authmechanism" and "Authcallback", respectively)
then the parameter values are used. Arguments provided to the method call however will
override parameter settings.
If you do not specify a second argument and you have not set the "Authcallback" parameter,
then the first argument must be one of the authentication mechanisms for which
Mail::IMAPClient has built in support.
See also the "login" method, which is the simplest form of authentication defined by
RFC3501.
before
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->before($Rfc3501_date)
or warn "No messages found before $Rfc3501_date.\n";
The before method works just like the "since" method, below, except it returns a list of
messages whose internal system dates are before the date supplied as the argument to the
before method.
body_string
Example:
my $string = $imap->body_string($msgId)
or die "body_string failed: ", $imap->LastError;
The body_string method accepts a message sequence number (or a message UID, if the "Uid"
parameter is set to true) as an argument and returns the message body as a string. The
returned value contains the entire message in one scalar variable, without the message
headers.
bodypart_string
Example:
my $string = $imap->bodypart_string(
$msgid, $part_number, $length, $offset
) or die "Could not get bodypart string: ", $imap->LastError;
The bodypart_string method accepts a message sequence number (or a message UID, if the
"Uid" parameter is set to true) and a body part as arguments and returns the message part
as a string. The returned value contains the entire message part (or, optionally, a
portion of the part) in one scalar variable.
If an optional third argument is provided, that argument is the number of bytes to fetch.
(The default is the whole message part.) If an optional fourth argument is provided then
that fourth argument is the offset into the part at which the fetch should begin. The
default is offset zero, or the beginning of the message part.
If you specify an offset without specifying a length then the offset will be ignored and
the entire part will be returned.
bodypart_string will return "undef" if it encounters an error.
capability
Example:
my $features = $imap->capability
or die "Could not determine capability: ", $imap->LastError;
The capability method returns an array (or arrayref in scalar context) of capabilities as
returned by the CAPABILITY IMAP client command. If the CAPABILITY IMAP client command
fails for any reason then the capability method will return "undef". Supported
capabilities are cached by the client, however, this cache is deleted after a connection
is set to Authenticated and when "starttls" is called.
See also "has_capability".
close
Example:
$imap->close or die "Could not close: $@\n";
The close method is used to close the currently selected folder via the CLOSE IMAP client
command. According to RFC3501, the CLOSE command performs an implicit EXPUNGE, which
means that any messages that are flagged as \Deleted (i.e. with the "delete_message"
method) will now be deleted. If you haven't deleted any messages then close can be
thought of as an "unselect".
Note: this closes the currently selected folder, not the IMAP session.
See also "delete_message", "expunge", and RFC3501.
compress
Example:
$imap->compress or die "Could not enable RFC4978 compression: $@\n";
The compress method accepts no arguments. This method is used to instruct the server to
use the DEFLATE (RFC1951) compression extension. See the "Compress" attribute for how to
specify arguments for use during the initialization process.
Version note: method added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.30
connect
Example:
$imap->connect or die "Could not connect: $@\n";
The connect method connects an imap object to the server. It returns "undef" if it fails
to connect for any reason. If values are available for the "User" and "Password"
parameters at the time that connect is invoked, then connect will call the "login" method
after connecting and return the result of the "login" method to connect's caller. If
either or both of the "User" and "Password" parameters are unavailable but the connection
to the server succeeds then connect returns a pointer to the IMAPClient object.
The "Server" parameter must be set (either during "new" method invocation or via the
"Server" object method) before invoking connect. When the parameter is an absolute file
path, an UNIX socket will get opened. If the "Server" parameter is supplied to the "new"
method then connect is implicitly called during object construction.
The connect method sets the state of the object to "Connected" if it successfully connects
to the server. It returns "undef" on failure.
copy
Example:
# Here brackets indicate optional arguments:
my $uidList = $imap->copy($folder, $msg_1 [ , ... , $msg_n ])
or die "Could not copy: $@\n";
Or:
# Now brackets indicate an array ref!
my $uidList = $imap->copy($folder, [ $msg_1, ... , $msg_n ])
or die "Could not copy: $@\n";
The copy method requires a folder name as the first argument, and a list of one or more
messages sequence numbers (or messages UID's, if the UID parameter is set to a true
value). The message sequence numbers or UID's should refer to messages in the currently
selected folder. Those messages will be copied into the folder named in the first
argument.
The copy method returns "undef" on failure and a true value if successful. If the server
to which the current Mail::IMAPClient object is connected supports the UIDPLUS capability
then the true value returned by copy will be a comma separated list of UID's, which are
the UID's of the newly copied messages in the target folder.
create
Example:
$imap->create($new_folder)
or die "Could not create $new_folder: $@\n";
The create method accepts one argument, the name of a folder (or what RFC3501 calls a
"mailbox") to create. If you specify additional arguments to the create method and your
server allows additional arguments to the CREATE IMAP client command then the extra
argument(s) will be passed to your server.
If you specify additional arguments to the create method and your server does not allow
additional arguments to the CREATE IMAP client command then the extra argument(s) will
still be passed to your server and the create will fail.
create returns a true value on success and "undef" on failure.
date
Example:
my $date = $imap->date($msg);
The date method accepts one argument, a message sequence number (or a message UID if the
"Uid" parameter is set to a true value). It returns the date of message as specified in
the message's RFC822 "Date: " header, without the "Date: " prefix.
The date method is a short-cut for:
my $date = $imap->get_header($msg,"Date");
delete
Example:
$imap->delete($folder) or die "Could not delete $folder: $@\n";
The delete method accepts a single argument, the name of a folder to delete. It returns a
true value on success and "undef" on failure.
deleteacl
Example:
$imap->deleteacl( $folder, $userid )
or die "Could not delete acl: $@\n";
The deleteacl method accepts two input arguments, a folder name, a user id (or
authentication identifier, to use the terminology of RFC2086). See RFC2086 for more
information. (This is somewhat experimental and its implementation may change.)
delete_message
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->seen;
scalar(@msgs) and $imap->delete_message(\@msgs)
or die "Could not delete_message: $@\n";
The above could also be rewritten like this:
# scalar context returns array ref
my $msgs = scalar($imap->seen);
scalar(@$msgs) and $imap->delete_message($msgs)
or die "Could not delete_message: $@\n";
Or, as a one-liner:
$imap->delete_message( scalar($imap->seen) )
or warn "Could not delete_message: $@\n";
# just give warning in case failure is
# due to having no 'seen' msgs in the 1st place!
The delete_message method accepts a list of arguments. If the "Uid" parameter is not set
to a true value, then each item in the list should be either:
o a message sequence number,
o a comma-separated list of message sequence numbers,
o a reference to an array of message sequence numbers, or
If the "Uid" parameter is set to a true value, then each item in the list should be
either:
o a message UID,
o a comma-separated list of UID's, or
o a reference to an array of message UID's.
The messages identified by the sequence numbers or UID's will be deleted. If successful,
delete_message returns the number of messages it was told to delete. However, since the
delete is done by issuing the +FLAGS.SILENT option of the STORE IMAP client command, there
is no guarantee that the delete was successful for every message. In this manner the
delete_message method sacrifices accuracy for speed. Generally, though, if a single
message in a list of messages fails to be deleted it's because it was already deleted,
which is what you wanted anyway so why worry about it? If there is a more severe error,
i.e. the server replies "NO", "BAD", or, banish the thought, "BYE", then delete_message
will return "undef".
If you must have guaranteed results then use the IMAP STORE client command (via the
default method) and use the +FLAGS (\Deleted) option, and then parse your results
manually.
Eg:
$imap->store( $msg_id, '+FLAGS (\Deleted)' );
my @results = $imap->History( $imap->Transaction );
... # code to parse output goes here
(Frankly I see no reason to bother with any of that; if a message doesn't get deleted it's
almost always because it's already not there, which is what you want anyway. But 'your
mileage may vary' and all that.)
The IMAPClient object must be in "Selected" status to use the delete_message method.
NOTE: All the messages identified in the input argument(s) must be in the currently
selected folder. Failure to comply with this requirement will almost certainly result in
the wrong message(s) being deleted.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: In the grand tradition of the IMAP protocol, deleting a message doesn't
actually delete the message. Really. If you want to make sure the message has been
deleted, you need to expunge the folder (via the "expunge" method, which is implemented
via the default method). Or at least "close" it. This is generally considered a feature,
since after deleting a message, you can change your mind and undelete it at any time
before your "expunge" or "close".
See also: the "delete" method, to delete a folder, the "expunge" method, to expunge a
folder, the "restore_message" method to undelete a message, and the "close" method
(implemented here via the default method) to close a folder. Oh, and don't forget about
RFC3501.
deny_seeing
Example:
# Reset all read msgs to unread
# (produces error if there are no seen msgs):
$imap->deny_seeing( scalar($imap->seen) )
or die "Could not deny_seeing: $@\n";
The deny_seeing method accepts a list of one or more message sequence numbers, or a single
reference to an array of one or more message sequence numbers, as its argument(s). It
then unsets the "\Seen" flag for those messages (so that you can "deny" that you ever saw
them). Of course, if the "Uid" parameter is set to a true value then those message
sequence numbers should be unique message id's.
Note that specifying "$imap->deny_seeing(@msgs)" is just a shortcut for specifying
"$imap->unset_flag("Seen",@msgs)".
disconnect
Example:
$imap->disconnect or warn "Could not logout: $@\n";
This method calls "logout", see "logout" for details.
done
Example:
my $tag = $imap->idle or warn "idle failed: $@\n";
doSomethingA();
my $idlemsgs = $imap->idle_data() or warn "idle_data error: $@\n";
doSomethingB();
my $results = $imap->done($tag) or warn "Error from done: $@\n";
The done method tells the IMAP server to terminate the IDLE command. The only argument is
the tag (identifier) received from the previous call to "idle". If tag is not specified a
default tag based on the Count attribute is assumed to be the tag to look for in the
response from the server.
If an invalid tag is specified, or the default tag is wrong, then done will hang
indefinitely or until a timeout occurs.
If done is called when an "idle" command is not active then the server will likely respond
with an error like * BAD Invalid tag.
On failure <undef> is returned and "LastError" is set.
See also "idle", "idle_data" and "Results".
examine
Example:
$imap->examine($folder) or die "Could not examine: $@\n";
The examine method selects a folder in read-only mode and changes the object's state to
"Selected". The folder selected via the examine method can be examined but no changes can
be made unless it is first selected via the "select" method.
The examine method accepts one argument, which is the name of the folder to select.
exists
Example:
$imap->exists($folder) or warn "$folder not found: $@\n";
Accepts one argument, a folder name. Returns true if the folder exists or false if it
does not exist.
expunge
Example:
$imap->expunge($folder) or die "Could not expunge: $@\n";
The expunge method accepts one optional argument, a folder name. It expunges the folder
specified as the argument, or the currently selected folder (if any) when no argument is
supplied.
Although RFC3501 does not permit optional arguments (like a folder name) to the EXPUNGE
client command, the "expunge" method does. Note: expunging a folder deletes the messages
that have the \Deleted flag set (i.e. messages flagged via "delete_message").
See also the "close" method, which "deselects" as well as expunges.
fetch
Usage:
$imap->fetch( [$seq_set|ALL], @msg_data_items )
Example:
my $output = $imap->fetch(@args) or die "Could not fetch: $@\n";
The fetch method implements the FETCH IMAP client command. It accepts a list of
arguments, which will be converted into a space-delimited list of arguments to the FETCH
IMAP client command. If no arguments are supplied then fetch does a FETCH ALL. If the
"Uid" parameter is set to a true value then the first argument will be treated as a UID or
list of UID's, which means that the UID FETCH IMAP client command will be run instead of
FETCH. (It would really be a good idea at this point to review RFC3501.)
If called in array context, fetch will return an array of output lines. The output lines
will be returned just as they were received from the server, so your script will have to
be prepared to parse out the bits you want. The only exception to this is literal
strings, which will be inserted into the output line at the point at which they were
encountered (without the {nnn} literal field indicator). See RFC3501 for a description of
literal fields.
If fetch is called in a scalar context, then a reference to an array (as described above)
is returned instead of the entire array.
fetch returns "undef" on failure. Inspect "LastError" or $@ for an explanation of your
error.
fetch_hash
Usage:
$imap->fetch_hash( [$seq_set|ALL], @msg_data_items, [\%msg_by_ids] )
Examples:
my $hashref = $imap->fetch_hash("RFC822.SIZE");
OR
my $hashref = {};
$imap->fetch_hash( "RFC822.SIZE", $hashref );
print "Msg #$_ is $hashref->{$_}->{'RFC822.SIZE'} bytes\n" for (keys %$hashref);
The fetch_hash method accepts a list of message attributes to be fetched (as described in
RFC3501). It returns a hash whose keys are all the messages in the currently selected
folder and whose values are key-value pairs of fetch keywords and the message's value for
that keyword (see sample output below).
If fetch_hash is called in scalar context, it returns a reference to the hash instead of
the hash itself. If the last argument is a hash reference, then that hash reference will
be used as the place where results are stored (and that reference will be returned upon
successful completion). If the last argument is not a reference then it will be treated
as one of the FETCH attributes and a new hash will be created and returned (either by
value or by reference, depending on the context in which fetch_hash was called).
For example, if you have a folder with 3 messages and want the size and internal date for
each of them, you could do the following:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
use Data::Dumper;
# ... other code goes here
$imap->select($folder);
my $hash = $imap->fetch_hash( "RFC822.SIZE", "INTERNALDATE" );
# (Same as:
# my $hash = $imap->fetch_hash("RFC822.SIZE");
# $imap->fetch_hash( "INTERNALDATE", $hash );
# ).
print Data::Dumper->Dumpxs( [$hash], ['$hash'] );
This would result in Data::Dumper output similar to the following:
$hash = {
'1' => {
'INTERNALDATE' => '21-Sep-2002 18:21:56 +0000',
'RFC822.SIZE' => '1586',
},
'2' => {
'INTERNALDATE' => '22-Sep-2002 11:29:42 +0000',
'RFC822.SIZE' => '1945',
},
'3' => {
'INTERNALDATE' => '23-Sep-2002 09:16:51 +0000',
'RFC822.SIZE' => '134314',
}
};
By itself this method may be useful for tasks like obtaining the size of every message in
a folder. It issues one command and receives one (possibly long!) response from the
server.
If the fetch request causes the server to return data in a parenthesized list, the data
within the parenthesized list may be escaped via the Escape() method. Use the Unescape()
method to get the raw values back in this case.
flags
Example:
my $flags = $imap->flags($msgid)
or die "flags failed: $@\n";
The flags method implements the FETCH IMAP client command to list a single message's
flags. It accepts one argument, a message sequence number (or a message UID, if the "Uid"
parameter is true), and returns an array (or a reference to an array, if called in scalar
context) listing the flags that have been set. Flag names are provided with leading
backslashes.
As of version 1.11, you can supply either a list of message id's or a reference to an
array of message id's (which means either sequence number, if the Uid parameter is false,
or message UID's, if the Uid parameter is true) instead of supplying a single message
sequence number or UID. If you do, then the return value will not be an array or array
reference; instead, it will be a hash reference, with each key being a message sequence
number (or UID) and each value being a reference to an array of flags set for that
message.
For example, if you want to display the flags for every message in the folder where you
store e-mail related to your plans for world domination, you could do something like this:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
Server => $imaphost,
User => $login,
Password => $pass,
Uid => 1, # optional
);
$imap->select("World Domination");
# get the flags for every message in my 'World Domination' folder
$flaghash = $imap->flags( scalar( $imap->search("ALL") ) );
# pump through sorted hash keys to print results:
for my $k ( sort { $flaghash->{$a} <=> $flaghash->{$b} } keys %$flaghash ) {
# print: Message 1: \Flag1, \Flag2, \Flag3
print "Message $k:\t", join( ", ", @{$flaghash->{$k}} ), "\n";
}
folders
Example:
$imap->folders or die "Could not list folders: $@\n";
The folders method returns an array listing the available folders. It will only be
successful if the object is in the Authenticated or Selected states.
The folders method accepts one optional argument, which is a prefix. If a prefix is
supplied to the folders method, then only folders beginning with the prefix will be
returned.
For example:
print join( ", ", $imap->folders ), ".\n";
# Prints:
# INBOX, Sent, Projects, Projects/Completed, Projects/Ongoing, Projects Software.
print join( ", ", $imap->folders("Projects") ), ".\n";
# Prints:
# Projects, Projects/Completed, Projects/Ongoing, Projects Software.
print join( ", ", $imap->folders("Projects" . $imap->separator) ), ".\n";
# Prints:
# Projects/Completed, Projects/Ongoing
Please note that documentation previously suggested that if you just want to list a
folder's subfolders (and not the folder itself), then you need to include the hierarchy
separator character (as returned by the "separator" method). However, this does not match
the behavior of the existing implementation, so you will need to manually exclude the
parent folder from the results.
folders_hash
my @fhashes = $imap->folders_hash
or die "Could not get list of folder hashes.\n";
The folders_hash method accepts one optional argument, which is a prefix. If a prefix is
supplied to the folders_hash method, then only folders beginning with the prefix will be
returned.
An array(ref) of hashes is returned that contain information about the requested folders.
Each hash contains three keys (name, attrs, delim) and looks like the following:
{
name => 'Mail/Box/Name',
attrs => [ '\Marked', '\HasNoChildren' ],
delim => '/',
}
IMAP servers implementing RFC6154 return attributes to be used to identify special-use
mailboxes (folders).
my $sattr_re = /\A\\(?:All|Archive|Drafts|Flagged|Junk|Sent|Trash)\Z/;
foreach my $fhash (@fhashes) {
next unless defined $fhash->{name};
my @special = grep { $sattr_re } @{ $fhash->{attrs} };
print("special: $fhash->{name} : @special\n") if (@special);
}
Version note: method added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.34
xlist_folders (DEPRECATED)
This method is deprecated as of version 3.34. Please use folders_hash instead. See
RFC6154 for attributes to be used to identify special-use mailboxes (folders).
Example:
my $xlist = $imap->xlist_folders
or die "Could not get xlist folders.\n";
IMAP servers implementing the XLIST extension (such as Gmail) designate particular folders
to be used for particular functions. This is useful in the case where you want to know
which folder should be used for Trash when the actual folder name can't be predicted (e.g.
in the case of Gmail, the folder names change depending on the user's locale settings).
The xlist_folders method returns a hash listing any "xlist" folder names, with the values
listing the actual folders that should be used for those names. For example, using this
method with a Gmail user using the English (US) locale might give this output from
Data::Dumper:
$VAR1 = {
'Inbox' => 'Inbox',
'AllMail' => '[Gmail]/All Mail',
'Trash' => '[Gmail]/Trash',
'Drafts' => '[Gmail]/Drafts',
'Sent' => '[Gmail]/Sent Mail',
'Spam' => '[Gmail]/Spam',
'Starred' => '[Gmail]/Starred'
};
The same list for a user using the French locale might look like this:
$VAR1 = {
'Inbox' => 'Bo&AO4-te de r&AOk-ception',
'AllMail' => '[Gmail]/Tous les messages',
'Trash' => '[Gmail]/Corbeille',
'Drafts' => '[Gmail]/Brouillons',
'Sent' => '[Gmail]/Messages envoy&AOk-s',
'Spam' => '[Gmail]/Spam',
'Starred' => '[Gmail]/Suivis'
};
Mail::IMAPClient recognizes the following "xlist" folder names:
Inbox
AllMail
Trash
Drafts
Sent
Spam
Starred
These are currently the only ones supported by Gmail. The XLIST extension is not
documented, and there are no other known implementations other than Gmail, so this list is
based on what Gmail provides.
If the server does not support the XLIST extension, this method returns undef.
Version note: method added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.21
has_capability
Example:
my $has_feature = $imap->has_capability($feature)
or die "Could not do has_capability($feature): $@\n";
Returns:
"undef"
If the underlying "capability" calls fails then "undef" is returned.
"" or "()"
If the server does not have the requested capability, then either an empty string (""
in scalar context) or an empty list ("()" in list context) is returned.
a true value
If the server has the requested capability, then a true value is returned. The true
value depends upon the server response for the capability requested. The value will
be an array reference in scalar context or an array in list context. The returned data
is useful for understanding more about specific capabilities. For example, consider
the following server CAPABILITY response:
* CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SORT SORT=DISPLAY I18NLEVEL=1 AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=XTEST
Results are returned as shown by the trailing comments:
$c = $imap->has_capability("IMAP4rev1"); # [ "IMAP4rev1" ]
@c = $imap->has_capability("IMAP4rev1"); # ( "IMAP4rev1" )
$c = $imap->has_capability("SORT"); # [ "DISPLAY" ]
@c = $imap->has_capability("SORT=DISPLAY"); # ( "SORT=DISPLAY" )
$c = $imap->has_capability("AUTH"); # [ "PLAIN", "XTEST" ]
@c = $imap->has_capability("AUTH"); # ( "PLAIN", "XTEST" )
$c = $imap->has_capability("AUTH=XTEST"); # [ "AUTH=XTEST" ]
@c = $imap->has_capability("AUTH=XTEST"); # ( "AUTH=XTEST" )
$c = $imap->has_capability("AUTH=NADA"); # ''
@c = $imap->has_capability("AUTH=NADA"); # ()
$c = $imap->has_capability("NADA"); # ''
@c = $imap->has_capability("NADA"); # ()
idle
Example:
my $tag = $imap->idle or warn "idle failed: $@\n";
doSomethingA();
my $idlemsgs = $imap->idle_data() or warn "idle_data error: $@\n";
doSomethingB();
my $results = $imap->done($tag) or warn "Error from done: $@\n";
The idle method tells the IMAP server the client is ready to accept unsolicited mailbox
update messages (on the selected folder/mailbox). This method is only valid on servers
that support the IMAP IDLE extension, see RFC2177 for details.
The idle method accepts no arguments and returns the tag (identifier) that was sent by the
client for this command. This tag should be supplied as the argument to "done" when
ending the IDLE command.
On failure <undef> is returned and "LastError" is set.
The method "idle_data" may be used once idle has been successful. However, no mailbox
operations may be called until the idle command has been terminated by calling "done".
Failure to do so will result in an error and the idle command will typically be terminated
by the server.
See also "idle_data" and "done".
idle_data
Usage:
# an optional timeout in seconds may be specified
$imap->idle_data( [$timeout] )
Example:
my $tag = $imap->idle or warn "idle failed: $@\n";
doSomethingA();
my $idlemsgs = $imap->idle_data() or warn "idle_data error: $@\n";
doSomethingB();
my $results = $imap->done($tag) or warn "Error from done: $@\n";
The idle_data method can be used to accept any unsolicited mailbox update messages that
have been sent by the server during an "idle" command. This method does not send any
commands to the server, it simply looks for and optionally waits for data from the server
and returns that data to the caller.
The idle_data method accepts an optional $timeout argument and returns an array (or an
array reference if called in scalar context) with the messages from the server.
By default a timeout of 0 seconds is used (do not block). Internally the timeout is
passed to "select" in perlfunc. The timeout controls how long the select call blocks if
there are no messages waiting to be read from the server.
On failure <undef> is returned and "LastError" is set.
See also "imap" and "done".
Version note: method added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.23 Warning: this method is considered
experimental and the interface/output may change in a future version.
imap4rev1
Example:
$imap->imap4rev1 or die "Could not imap4rev1: $@\n";
Returns true if the IMAP server to which the IMAPClient object is connected has the
IMAP4REV1 capability. If the server does not have the capability then the empty string ""
is returned, if the underlying "capability" calls fails then undef is returned.
internaldate
Example:
my $msg_internal_date = $imap->internaldate($msgid)
or die "internaldate failed: $@\n";
internaldate accepts one argument, a message id (or UID if the "Uid" parameter is true),
and returns that message's internal date or undef if the call fails or internal date is
not returned.
get_bodystructure
Example:
my $bodyStructObject = $imap->get_bodystructure($msgid)
or die "Could not get_bodystructure: $@\n";
The get_bodystructure method accepts one argument, a message sequence number or, if "Uid"
is true, a message UID. It obtains the message's body structure and returns a parsed
Mail::IMAPClient::BodyStructure object for the message.
get_envelope
Example:
my $envObject = $imap->get_envelope(@args)
or die "Could not get_envelope: $@\n";
The get_envelope method accepts one argument, a message sequence number or, if "Uid" is
true, a message UID. It obtains the message's envelope and returns a
Mail::IMAPClient::BodyStructure::Envelope object for the envelope, which is just a version
of the envelope that's been parsed into a Perl object.
For more information on how to use this object once you've gotten it, see the
Mail::IMAPClient::BodyStructure documentation. (As of this writing there is no separate
pod document for Mail::IMAPClient::BodyStructure::Envelope.)
getacl
Example:
my $hash = $imap->getacl($folder)
or die "Could not getacl for $folder: $@\n";
getacl accepts one argument, the name of a folder. If no argument is provided then the
currently selected folder is used as the default. It returns a reference to a hash. The
keys of the hash are userids that have access to the folder, and the value of each element
are the permissions for that user. The permissions are listed in a string in the order
returned from the server with no white space or punctuation between them.
get_header
Example:
my $messageId = $imap->get_header( $msg, "Message-Id" );
The get_header method accepts two arguments, a message sequence number or UID and the name
of an RFC822 header (without the trailing colon). It returns the value for that header in
the message whose sequence number or UID was passed as the first argument. If no value
can be found it returns "undef"; if multiple values are found it returns the first one.
Its return value is always a scalar. get_header uses case insensitive matching to get the
value, so you do not have to worry about the case of your second argument.
The get_header method is a short-cut for:
my $messageId = $imap->parse_headers($msg,"Subject")->{"Subject"}[0];
getquotaroot
Example:
my $results = $imap->getquotaroot($mailboxname)
or die "Could not getquotaroot for $mailboxname: $@\n";
The getquotaroot method implements the RFC2087 GETQUOTAROOT command. The "$mailboxname"
defaults to "INBOX" if no argument is provided.
On error "undef" is returned, otherwise "Results" are returned. The results should have
the untagged QUOTAROOT response from the server along with the QUOTAROOT's resource usage
and limits in an untagged QUOTA response.
See also RFC2087, "getquota", "setquota", "quota" and "quota_usage".
getquota
Example:
my $results = $imap->getquota($quotaroot)
or die "Could not getquota for $quotaroot: $@\n";
The getquota method implements the RFC2087 GETQUOTA command. The "$quotaroot" defaults to
"user/User" if no argument is provided.
On error "undef" is returned, otherwise "Results" are returned. The results from the
server should have the untagged QUOTA response from the server.
See also RFC2087, "getquotaroot", "quota" and "quota_usage".
quota
Example:
my $limit = $imap->quota($quotaroot)
or die "Could not get quota limit for $quotaroot: $@\n";
The quota method takes the "Results" from getquota and parses out the "STORAGE" limit
returned by the server. The "$quotaroot" defaults to "INBOX" if no argument is provided.
On error "undef" is returned, otherwise the integer "STORAGE" limit provided by the server
is returned.
See also RFC2087, "getquotaroot", "getquota" and "quota_usage".
quota_usage
Example:
my $usage = $imap->quota_usage($quotaroot)
or die "Could not get quota usage for $quotaroot: $@\n";
The quota_usage method takes the "Results" from getquota and parses out the "STORAGE"
usage returned by the server. The "$quotaroot" defaults to "INBOX" if no argument is
provided.
On error "undef" is returned, otherwise the integer "STORAGE" usage provided by the server
is returned.
See also RFC2087, "getquotaroot", "getquota" and "quota".
setquota
Example:
my $results = $imap->setquota( $quotaroot, $resource, $limit )
or die "Could not setquota for $quotaroot: $@\n";
The setquota method implements the RFC2087 SETQUOTA command. It accepts multiple pairs of
$resource and $limit arguments. The "$quotaroot" defaults to "user/User" if not defined.
On error "undef" is returned, otherwise "Results" are returned.
See also RFC2087, "getquotaroot" and "getquota".
is_parent
Example:
my $hasKids = $imap->is_parent($folder);
The is_parent method accepts one argument, the name of a folder. It returns a value that
indicates whether or not the folder has children. The value it returns is either:
1 (or a positive integer)
The "\HasChildren" attribute is set, indicating that the folder has children.
0 (zero)
The "\HasNoChildren" attribute is set, indicating that the folder has no children at
this time.
"undef"
The "\NoInferiors" attribute is set, indicating the folder is not permitted to have
children.
Eg:
my $parenthood = $imap->is_parent($folder);
if ( defined($parenthood) ) {
if ($parenthood) {
print "$folder has children.\n";
}
else {
print "$folder is permitted children, but has none.\n";
}
}
else {
print "$folder is not permitted to have children.\n";
}
list
Example:
my @raw_output = $imap->list(@args)
or die "Could not list: $@\n";
The list method implements the IMAP LIST client command. Arguments are passed to the IMAP
server as received, separated from each other by spaces. If no arguments are supplied
then the default list command "tag LIST "" '*'" is issued.
The list method returns an array (or an array reference, if called in a scalar context).
The array is the unadulterated output of the LIST command. (If you want your output
adulterated then see the "folders" method, above.)
An "undef" value is returned in case of errors. Be sure to check for it.
listrights
Example:
$imap->listrights( $folder, $user )
or die "Could not listrights: $@\n";
The listrights method implements the IMAP LISTRIGHTS client command (RFC2086). It accepts
two arguments, the foldername and a user id. It returns the rights the specified user has
for the specified folder. If called in a scalar context then the rights are returned a
strings, with no punctuation or white space or any nonsense like that. If called in array
context then listrights returns an array in which each element is one right.
login
Example:
$imap->login or die "Could not login: $@\n";
The login method implements the IMAP LOGIN client command to log into the server. It
automatically calls "authenticate" if the Authmechanism parameter is set to anything
except 'LOGIN' otherwise a clear text LOGIN is attempted.
The User and Password parameters must be set before the login method can be invoked. On
success, a Mail::IMAPClient object with the Status of Authenticated is returned. On
failure, undef is returned and $@ is set. The methods "new", "connect", and "Socket" may
automatically invoke login see the documentation of each method for details.
If the "Compress" parameter is set, the "compress" method will automatically be called
after successful authentication.
See also "proxyauth" and "Proxy" for additional information regarding ways of
authenticating with a server via SASL and/or PROXYAUTH.
proxyauth
Example:
$imap->login( "admin", "password" );
$imap->proxyauth("someuser");
The proxyauth method implements the IMAP PROXYAUTH client command. The command is used by
Sun/iPlanet/Netscape IMAP servers to allow an administrative user to masquerade as another
user.
logout
Example:
$imap->logout or die "Could not logout: $@\n";
The logout method implements the LOGOUT IMAP client command. This method causes the
server to end the connection and the IMAPClient client enters the Unconnected state. This
method does not, destroy the IMAPClient object, thus the "connect" and "login" methods can
be used to establish a new IMAP session.
Note that RFC2683 section 3.1.2 (Severed connections) makes some recommendations on how
IMAP clients should behave. It is up to the user of this module to decide on the
preferred behavior and code accordingly.
Version note: documentation (from 2.x through 3.23) claimed that Mail::IMAPClient would
attempt to log out of the server during DESTROY if the object is in the "Connected" state.
This documentation was apparently incorrect from at least 2.2.2 and possibly earlier
versions on up.
lsub
Example:
$imap->lsub(@args) or die "Could not lsub: $@\n";
The lsub method implements the IMAP LSUB client command. Arguments are passed to the IMAP
server as received, separated from each other by spaces. If no arguments are supplied
then the default lsub command "tag LSUB "" '*'" is issued.
The lsub method returns an array (or an array reference, if called in a scalar context).
The array is the unaltered output of the LSUB command. If you want an array of subscribed
folders then see the "subscribed" method, below.
mark
Example:
$imap->mark(@msgs) or die "Could not mark: $@\n";
The mark method accepts a list of one or more messages sequence numbers, or a single
reference to an array of one or more message sequence numbers, as its argument(s). It
then sets the "\Flagged" flag for those message(s). Of course, if the "Uid" parameter is
set to a true value then those message sequence numbers had better be unique message id's.
Note that specifying "$imap->see(@msgs)" is just a shortcut for specifying
"$imap->set_flag("Flagged",@msgs)".
Massage
Example:
$imap->search(HEADER => 'Message-id' => $imap->Massage($msg_id,1));
WARNING: This method may be deprecated in the future, consider using "Quote" instead of
this method.
The Massage method accepts a value as an argument and, optionally, a second value that,
when true, indicates that the first argument is not the name of an existing folder.
WARNING: If the first argument has double quotes at the beginning and end of its value,
those double quote will be stripped unless the second argument does not evaluate to true.
It returns its argument as a correctly quoted string or a literal string.
Note that you should rarely use this on folder names, since methods that accept folder
names as an argument will call Quote for you.
message_count
Example:
my $msgcount = $imap->message_count($folder);
defined($msgcount) or die "message_count failed: $@\n";
The message_count method accepts the name of a folder as an argument and returns the
number of messages in that folder. Internally, it invokes the "status" method (see above)
and parses out the results to obtain the number of messages. If you don't supply an
argument to message_count then it will return the number of messages in the currently
selected folder (assuming of course that you've used the "select" or "examine" method to
select it instead of trying something funky). Note that RFC2683 contains warnings about
the use of the IMAP STATUS command (and thus the "status" method and therefore the
message_count method) against the currently selected folder. You should carefully
consider this before using message_count on the currently selected folder. You may be
better off using "search" or one of its variants (especially "messages"), and then
counting the results. On the other hand, I regularly violate this rule on my server
without suffering any dire consequences. Your mileage may vary.
message_string
Example:
my $string = $imap->message_string($msgid)
or die "message_string failed: $@\n";
The message_string method accepts a message sequence number (or message UID if "Uid" is
true) as an argument and returns the message as a string. The returned value contains the
entire message in one scalar variable, including the message headers. Note that using
this method will set the message's "\Seen" flag as a side effect, unless Peek is set to a
true value.
message_to_file
Example:
$imap->message_to_file( $file, @msgs )
or die "message_to_file failed: $@\n";
The message_to_file method accepts a filename or file handle and one or more message
sequence numbers (or message UIDs if "Uid" is true) as arguments and places the message
string(s) (including RFC822 headers) into the file named in the first argument (or prints
them to the file handle, if a file handle is passed). The returned value is true on
success and "undef" on failure.
If the first argument is a reference, it is assumed to be an open file handle and will not
be closed when the method completes, If it is a file, it is opened in append mode, written
to, then closed.
Note that using this method will set the message's "\Seen" flag as a side effect. But you
can use the "deny_seeing" method to set it back, or set the "Peek" parameter to a true
value to prevent setting the "\Seen" flag at all.
This method currently works by making some basic assumptions about the server's behavior,
notably that the message text will be returned as a literal string but that nothing else
will be. If you have a better idea then I'd like to hear it.
message_uid
Example:
my $msg_uid = $imap->message_uid($msg_seq_no)
or die "Could not get uid for $msg_seq_no: $@\n";
The message_uid method accepts a message sequence number (or message UID if "Uid" is true)
as an argument and returns the message's UID. Yes, if "Uid" is true then it will use the
IMAP UID FETCH UID client command to obtain and return the very same argument you
supplied. This is an IMAP feature so don't complain to me about it.
messages
Example:
# Get a list of messages in the current folder:
my @msgs = $imap->messages or warn "Could not list messages\n";
# Get a reference to an array of messages in the current folder:
my $msgs = $imap->messages or die "Get messages failed: $@\n";
If called in list context, the messages method returns a list of all the messages in the
currently selected folder. If called in scalar context, it returns a reference to an
array containing all the messages in the folder. This is the same as specifying
"$imap->"search"("ALL")".
An empty list is returned when no messages are found. On failure <undef> is returned and
"LastError" is set.
migrate
Example:
$imap_src->migrate( $imap_dest, "ALL", $targetFolder )
or die "Could not migrate: ", $imap_src->LastError;
The migrate method copies the indicated message(s) from the currently selected folder to
another Mail::IMAPClient object's session. It requires these arguments:
1. a reference to the target Mail::IMAPClient object (not the calling object, which is
connected to the source account);
2. the message(s) to be copied, specified as either a) the message sequence number (or
message UID if the UID parameter is true) of a single message, b) a reference to an
array of message sequence numbers (or message UID's if the UID parameter is true) or
c) the special string "ALL", which is a shortcut for the results of ""search"("ALL")".
3. the name of the destination folder on the target mailbox to receive the message(s).
If this argument is not supplied or is undef then the currently selected folder on the
calling object will be used. The destination folder will be automatically created if
necessary.
The target ($imap_dest) Mail::IMAPClient object must not be the same object as the source
($imap_src).
This method does not attempt to minimize memory usage. In the future it could be enhanced
to (optionally) write message data to a temporary file to avoid storing the entire message
in memory.
To work around potential network timeouts on large messages, consider setting
"Reconnectretry" to 1 on both $imap_src and $imap_dest.
See also "Supportedflags".
move
Example:
my $newUid = $imap->move( $newFolder, $oldUid )
or die "Could not move: $@\n";
$imap->expunge;
The move method moves messages from the currently selected folder to the folder specified
in the first argument to move. If the "Uid" parameter is not true, then the rest of the
arguments should be either:
a) a message sequence number,
b) a comma-separated list of message sequence numbers, or
c) a reference to an array of message sequence numbers.
If the "Uid" parameter is true, then the arguments should be:
a) a message UID,
b) a comma-separated list of message UID's, or
c) a reference to an array of message UID's.
If the target folder does not exist then it will be created.
If move is successful, then it returns a true value. Furthermore, if the Mail::IMAPClient
object is connected to a server that has the UIDPLUS capability, then the true value will
be the comma-separated list of UID's for the newly copied messages. The list will be in
the order in which the messages were moved which should correspond to the order of the
message UID provided by the caller.
If the move is not successful then move returns "undef".
Note that a move really just involves copying the message to the new folder and then
setting the \Deleted flag. To actually delete the original message you will need to run
"expunge" (or "close").
namespace
Example:
my $refs = $imap->namespace
or die "namespace failed: $@\n";
The namespace method runs the NAMESPACE IMAP command (as defined in RFC 2342). When
called in a list context, it returns a list of three references. Each reference looks
like this:
[
[ $prefix_1, $separator_1 ],
[ $prefix_2, $separator_2 ],
[ $prefix_n, $separator_n ],
]
The first reference provides a list of prefixes and separator characters for the available
personal namespaces. The second reference provides a list of prefixes and separator
characters for the available shared namespaces. The third reference provides a list of
prefixes and separator characters for the available public namespaces.
If any of the three namespaces are unavailable on the current server then an 'undef' is
returned instead of a reference. So for example if shared folders were not supported on
the server but personal and public namespaces were both available (with one namespace
each), the returned value might resemble this:
[ [ "", "/" ] , undef, [ "#news", "." ] ];
If the namespace method is called in scalar context, it returns a reference to the above-
mentioned list of three references, thus creating a single structure that would pretty-
print something like this:
$VAR1 = [
[
[ $user_prefix_1, $user_separator_1 ],
[ $user_prefix_2, $user_separator_2 ],
[ $user_prefix_n, $user_separator_n ],
], # or undef
[
[ $shared_prefix_1, $shared_separator_1 ],
[ $shared_prefix_2, $shared_separator_2 ],
[ $shared_prefix_n, $shared_separator_n ],
], # or undef
[
[ $public_prefix_1, $public_separator_1 ],
[ $public_prefix_2, $public_separator_2 ],
[ $public_prefix_n, $public_separator_n ],
], # or undef
];
on
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->on($Rfc3501_date)
or warn "Could not find messages sent on $Rfc3501_date: $@\n";
The on method works just like the "since" method, below, except it returns a list of
messages whose internal system dates are the same as the date supplied as the argument.
parse_headers
Example:
my $hashref = $imap->parse_headers( $msg || \@msgs, "Date", "Subject" )
or die "Could not parse_headers: $@\n";
The parse_headers method accepts as arguments a message sequence number and a list of
header fields. It returns a hash reference in which the keys are the header field names
(without the colon) and the values are references to arrays of values. On failure <undef>
is returned and "LastError" is set.
A picture would look something like this:
$hashref = $imap->parse_headers( 1, "Date", "Received", "Subject", "To");
$hashref = {
"Date" => [ "Thu, 09 Sep 1999 09:49:04 -0400" ] ,
"Received" => [ q/
from mailhub ([111.11.111.111]) by mailhost.bigco.com
(Netscape Messaging Server 3.6) with ESMTP id AAA527D for
<bigshot AT bigco.com>; Fri, 18 Jun 1999 16:29:07 +0000
/, q/
from directory-daemon by mailhub.bigco.com (PMDF V5.2-31 #38473)
id <0FDJ0010174HF7 AT mailhub.com> for bigshot AT bigco.com
(ORCPT rfc822;big.shot AT bigco.com); Fri, 18 Jun 1999 16:29:05 +0000 (GMT)
/, q/
from someplace ([999.9.99.99]) by smtp-relay.bigco.com (PMDF V5.2-31 #38473)
with ESMTP id <0FDJ0000P74H0W AT smtp-relay.com> for big.shot AT bigco.com; Fri,
18 Jun 1999 16:29:05 +0000 (GMT)
/] ,
"Subject" => [ qw/ Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!/ ] ,
"To" => [ "Big Shot <big.shot AT bigco.com> ] ,
};
The text in the example for the "Received" array has been formatted to make reading the
example easier. The actual values returned are just strings of words separated by spaces
and with newlines and carriage returns stripped off. The Received header is probably the
main reason that the parse_headers method creates a hash of lists rather than a hash of
values.
If the second argument to parse_headers is 'ALL' or if it is unspecified then all
available headers are included in the returned hash of lists.
If you're not emotionally prepared to deal with a hash of lists then you can always call
the "fetch" method yourself with the appropriate parameters and parse the data out any way
you want to. Also, in the case of headers whose contents are also reflected in the
envelope, you can use the "get_envelope" method as an alternative to "parse_headers".
If the "Uid" parameter is true then the first argument will be treated as a message UID.
If the first argument is a reference to an array of message sequence numbers (or UID's if
"Uid" is true), then parse_headers will be run against each message in the array. In this
case the return value is a hash, in which the key is the message sequence number (or UID)
and the value is a reference to a hash as described above.
An example of using parse_headers to print the date and subject of every message in your
demo folder could look like this:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
Server => $imaphost, User => $login, Password => $pass, Uid => 1
);
$imap->select("demo");
my $msgs = $imap->search("ALL");
for my $h (
# get the Subject and Date from every message in folder "demo" the
# first arg is a reference to an array listing all messages in the
# folder (which is what gets returned by the $imap->search("ALL")
# method when called in scalar context) and the remaining arguments
# are the fields to parse out The key is the message number, which
# in this case we don't care about:
values %{ $imap->parse_headers( $msgs , "Subject", "Date") } )
{
# $h is the value of each element in the hash ref returned
# from parse_headers, and $h is also a reference to a hash.
# We'll only print the first occurrence of each field because
# we don't expect more than one Date: or Subject: line per
# message.
print map { "$_:\t$h->{$_}[0]\n"} keys %$h;
}
recent
Example:
my @recent = $imap->recent or warn "No recent msgs: $@\n";
The recent method performs an IMAP SEARCH RECENT search against the selected folder and
returns an array of sequence numbers (or UID's, if the "Uid" parameter is true) of
messages that are recent.
recent_count
Example:
my $count = 0;
defined($count = $imap->recent_count($folder))
or die "recent_count failed: $@\n";
The recent_count method accepts as an argument a folder name. It returns the number of
recent messages in the folder (as returned by the IMAP client command "STATUS folder
RECENT"), or "undef" in the case of an error. The recent_count method was contributed by
Rob Deker (deker AT ikimbo.com).
noop
Example:
$imap->noop or die "noop failed: $@\n";
The noop method performs an IMAP NOOP command. Per RFC3501 this command does nothing and
always succeeds. However, if a connection times out or other errors occur while
communicating with the server, this method can still fail. This command can be used as a
periodic poll to check for (untagged) status updates (new messages, etc.) from the server
and also to reset any inactivity/auto-logout timers the server may maintain.
reconnect
Example:
$imap->noop or $imap->reconnect or die "noop failed: $@\n";
Attempt to reconnect if the IMAP connection unless $imap is already in the IsConnected
state. This method calls "connect" and optionally "select" if a Folder was previously
selected. On success, returns the (same) $imap object. On failure <undef> is returned
and "LastError" is set.
Version note: method added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.17
rename
Example:
$imap->rename( $oldname, $nedwname )
or die "rename failed: $@\n";
The rename method accepts two arguments: the name of an existing folder, and a new name
for the folder. The existing folder will be renamed to the new name using the RENAME IMAP
client command. rename will return a true value if successful, or "undef" if
unsuccessful.
restore_message
Example:
$imap->restore_message(@msgs) or die "restore_message failed: $@\n";
The restore_message method is used to undo a previous "delete_message" operation (but not
if there has been an intervening "expunge" or "close"). The IMAPClient object must be in
"Selected" status to use the restore_message method.
The restore_message method accepts a list of arguments. If the "Uid" parameter is not set
to a true value, then each item in the list should be either:
> a message sequence number,
> a comma-separated list of message sequence numbers,
> a reference to an array of message sequence numbers, or
If the "Uid" parameter is set to a true value, then each item in the list should be
either:
> a message UID,
> a comma-separated list of UID's, or
> a reference to an array of message UID's.
The messages identified by the sequence numbers or UID's will have their \Deleted flags
cleared, effectively "undeleting" the messages. restore_message returns the number of
messages it was able to restore.
Note that restore_messages is similar to calling ""unset_flag"("\Deleted",@msgs)", except
that restore_messages returns a (slightly) more meaningful value. Also it's easier to
type.
run
Example:
$imap->run(@args) or die "run failed: $@\n";
The run method is provided to make those uncommon things possible... however, we would
like you to contribute the knowledge of missing features with us.
The run method excepts one or two arguments. The first argument is a string containing an
IMAP client command, including a tag and all required arguments. The optional second
argument is a string to look for that will indicate success. (The default is "/OK.*/").
The run method returns an array (or arrayref in scalar context) of output lines from the
command, which you are free to parse as you see fit.
The run method does not do any syntax checking, other than rudimentary checking for a tag.
When run processes the command, it increments the transaction count and saves the command
and responses in the History buffer in the same way other commands do. However, it also
creates a special entry in the History buffer named after the tag supplied in the string
passed as the first argument. If you supply a numeric value as the tag then you may risk
overwriting a previous transaction's entry in the History buffer.
If you want the control of run but you don't want to worry about tags then see
"tag_and_run", below.
search
Example:
my $msgs1 = $imap->search(@args);
if ($msgs1) {
print "search matches: @$msgs1";
}
else {
warn "Error in search: $@\n" if $@;
}
# or note: be sure to quote string properly
my $msgs2 = $imap->search( \( $imap->Quote($msgid), "FROM", q{"me"} ) )
or warn "search failed: $@\n";
# or note: be sure to quote string properly
my $msgs3 = $imap->search('TEXT "string not in mailbox"')
or warn "search failed: $@\n";
The search method implements the SEARCH IMAP client command. Any arguments supplied to
search are prefixed with a space then appended to the SEARCH IMAP client command. The
SEARCH IMAP client command allows for many options and arguments. See RFC3501 for
details.
As of version 3.17 search tries to "DWIM" by automatically quoting things that likely need
quotes when the words do not match any of the following:
ALL ANSWERED BCC BEFORE BODY CC DELETED DRAFT FLAGGED
FROM HEADER KEYWORD LARGER NEW NOT OLD ON OR RECENT
SEEN SENTBEFORE SENTON SENTSINCE SINCE SMALLER SUBJECT
TEXT TO UID UNANSWERED UNDELETED UNDRAFT UNFLAGGED
UNKEYWORD UNSEEN
The following options exist to avoid the automatic quoting (note: caller is responsible
for verifying the data sent in these cases is properly escaped/quoted):
o specify a single string/argument in the call to search.
o specify args as scalar references (SCALAR) and the values of those SCALAR refs will be
passed along as-is.
The search method returns an array containing sequence numbers of messages that passed the
SEARCH IMAP client command's search criteria. If the "Uid" parameter is true then the
array will contain message UID's. If search is called in scalar context then a pointer to
the array will be passed, instead of the array itself. If no messages meet the criteria
then search returns an empty list (when in list context) or "undef" (in scalar context).
Since a valid, successful search can legitimately return zero matches, you may wish to
distinguish between a search that correctly returns zero hits and a search that has failed
for some other reason (i.e. invalid search parameters). Therefore, the $@ variable will
always be cleared before the SEARCH command is issued to the server, and will thus remain
empty unless the server gives a BAD or NO response to the SEARCH command.
see
Example:
$imap->see(@msgs) or die "see failed: $@\n";
The see method accepts a list of one or more messages sequence numbers, or a single
reference to an array of one or more message sequence numbers, as its argument(s). It
then sets the \Seen flag for those message(s). Of course, if the "Uid" parameter is set
to a true value then those message sequence numbers had better be unique message id's, but
then you already knew that, didn't you?
Note that specifying "$imap->see(@msgs)" is just a shortcut for specifying
"$imap->"set_flag"("Seen",@msgs)".
seen
Example:
my @seenMsgs = $imap->seen or warn "No seen msgs: $@\n";
The seen method performs an IMAP SEARCH SEEN search against the selected folder and
returns an array of sequence numbers of messages that have already been seen (ie their
\Seen flag is set). If the "Uid" parameter is true then an array of message UID's will be
returned instead. If called in scalar context than a reference to the array (rather than
the array itself) will be returned.
select
Example:
$imap->select($folder) or die "select failed: $@\n";
The select method selects a folder and changes the object's state to Selected. It accepts
one argument, which is the name of the folder to select.
selectable
Example:
foreach my $f ( grep( $imap->selectable($_), $imap->folders ) ) {
$imap->select($f);
}
The selectable method accepts one value, a folder name, and returns true if the folder is
selectable or false if it is not selectable.
sentbefore
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->sentbefore($Rfc3501_date)
or warn "Could not find any msgs sent before $Rfc3501_date: $@\n";
The sentbefore method works just like "sentsince", below, except it searches for messages
that were sent before the date supplied as an argument to the method.
senton
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->senton($Rfc3501_date)
or warn "Could not find any messages sent on $Rfc3501_date: $@\n";
The senton method works just like "sentsince", below, except it searches for messages that
were sent on the exact date supplied as an argument to the method.
sentsince
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->sentsince($Rfc3501_date)
or warn "Could not find any messages sent since $Rfc3501_date: $@\n";
The sentsince method accepts one argument, a date in either epoch time format (seconds
since 1/1/1970, or as output by time and as accepted by localtime) or in the date_text
format as defined in RFC3501 (dd-Mon-yyyy, where Mon is the English-language three-letter
abbreviation for the month).
It searches for items in the currently selected folder for messages sent since the day
whose date is provided as the argument. It uses the RFC822 Date: header to determine the
sentsince date. (Actually, it the server that uses the Date: header; this documentation
just assumes that the date is coming from the Date: header because that's what RFC3501
dictates.)
In the case of arguments supplied as a number of seconds, the returned result list will
include items sent on or after that day, regardless of whether they arrived before the
specified time on that day. The IMAP protocol does not support searches at a granularity
finer than a day, so neither do I. On the other hand, the only thing I check for in a
date_text argument is that it matches the pattern "/\d\d-\D\D\D-\d\d\d\d/" (notice the
lack of anchors), so if your server lets you add something extra to a date_text string
then so will Mail::IMAPClient.
If you'd like, you can use the "Rfc3501_date" method to convert from epoch time (as
returned by time) into an RFC3501 date specification.
separator
Example:
my $sepChar = $imap->separator(@args)
or die "Could not get separator: $@\n";
The separator method returns the character used as a separator character in folder
hierarchies. On UNIX-based servers, this is often but not necessarily a forward slash
(/). It accepts one argument, the name of a folder whose hierarchy's separator should be
returned. If no folder name is supplied then the separator for the INBOX is returned,
which probably is good enough.
If you want your programs to be portable from IMAP server brand X to IMAP server brand Y,
then you should never use hard-coded separator characters to specify subfolders. (In
fact, it's even more complicated than that, since some server don't allow any subfolders
at all, some only allow subfolders under the "INBOX" folder, and some forbid subfolders in
the inbox but allow them "next" to the inbox. Furthermore, some server implementations do
not allow folders to contain both subfolders and mail messages; other servers allow this.)
set_flag
Example:
$imap->set_flag( "Seen", @msgs )
or die "Could not set flag: $@\n";
The set_flag method accepts the name of a flag as its first argument and a list of one or
more messages sequence numbers, or a single reference to an array of one or more message
sequence numbers, as its next argument(s). It then sets the flag specified for those
message(s). Of course, if the "Uid" parameter is set to a true value then those message
sequence numbers had better be unique message id's, just as you'd expect.
Note that when specifying the flag in question, the preceding backslash (\) is entirely
optional. (For you, that is. Mail::IMAPClient still has remember to stick it in there
before passing the command to the server if the flag is one of the reserved flags
specified in RFC3501. This is in fact so important that the method checks its argument
and adds the backslash when necessary, which is why you don't have to worry about it
overly much.)
setacl
Example:
$imap->setacl( $folder, $userid, $aclstring )
or die "Could not set acl: $@\n";
The setacl method accepts three input arguments, a folder name, a user id (or
authentication identifier, to use the terminology of RFC2086), and an access rights
modification string. See RFC2086 for more information. (This is somewhat experimental
and its implementation may change.)
since
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->since($date)
or warn "Could not find any messages since $date: $@\n";
The since method accepts a date in either epoch format (seconds since 1/1/1970, or as
output by "time" in perlfunc and as accepted by "localtime" in perlfunc) or in the
date_text format as defined in RFC3501 (dd-Mon-yyyy, where Mon is the English-language
three-letter abbreviation for the month). It searches for items in the currently selected
folder for messages whose internal dates are on or after the day whose date is provided as
the argument. It uses the internal system date for a message to determine if that message
was sent since the given date.
In the case of arguments supplied as a number of seconds, the returned result list will
include items whose internal date is on or after that day, regardless of whether they
arrived before the specified time on that day.
If since is called in a list context then it will return a list of messages meeting the
SEARCH SINCE criterion, or an empty list if no messages meet the criterion.
If since is called in a scalar context then it will return a reference to an array of
messages meeting the SEARCH SINCE criterion, or "undef" if no messages meet the criterion.
Since since is a front-end to "search", some of the same rules apply. For example, the $@
variable will always be cleared before the SEARCH command is issued to the server, and
will thus remain empty unless the server gives a BAD or NO response to the SEARCH command.
size
Example:
my $size = $imap->size($msgId)
or die "Could not find size of message $msgId: $@\n";
The size method accepts one input argument, a sequence number (or message UID if the "Uid"
parameter is true). It returns the size of the message in the currently selected folder
with the supplied sequence number (or UID). The IMAPClient object must be in a Selected
state in order to use this method.
sort
Example:
my @msgs = $imap->sort(@args);
warn "Error in sort: $@\n" if $@;
The sort method is just like the "search" method, only different. It implements the SORT
extension as described in https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5256. It would be wise to use
the "has_capability" method to verify that the SORT capability is available on your server
before trying to use the sort method. If you forget to check and you're connecting to a
server that doesn't have the SORT capability then sort will return undef. "LastError"
will then say you are "BAD". If your server doesn't support the SORT capability then
you'll have to use "search" and then sort the results yourself.
The first argument to sort is a space-delimited list of sorting criteria. The Internet
Draft that describes SORT requires that this list be wrapped in parentheses, even if there
is only one sort criterion. If you forget the parentheses then the sort method will add
them. But you have to forget both of them, or none. This isn't CMS running under VM!
The second argument is a character set to use for sorting. Different character sets use
different sorting orders, so this argument is important. Since all servers must support
UTF-8 and US-ASCII if they support the SORT capability at all, you can use one of those if
you don't have some other preferred character set in mind.
The rest of the arguments are searching criteria, just as you would supply to the "search"
method. These are all documented in RFC3501. If you just want all of the messages in the
currently selected folder returned to you in sorted order, use ALL as your only search
criterion.
The sort method returns an array containing sequence numbers of messages that passed the
SORT IMAP client command's search criteria. If the "Uid" parameter is true then the array
will contain message UID's. If sort is called in scalar context then a pointer to the
array will be passed, instead of the array itself. The message sequence numbers or unique
identifiers are ordered according to the sort criteria specified. The sort criteria are
nested in the order specified; that is, items are sorted first by the first criterion, and
within the first criterion they are sorted by the second criterion, and so on.
The sort method will clear $@ before attempting the SORT operation just as the "search"
method does.
starttls
Example:
$imap->starttls() or die "starttls failed: $@\n";
The starttls method accepts no arguments. This method is used to upgrade an exiting
connection which is not authenticated to a TLS/SSL connection by using the IMAP STARTTLS
command followed by using the start_SSL class method from IO::Socket::SSL to do the
necessary TLS negotiation. The negotiation is done in a blocking fashion with a default
Timeout of 30 seconds. The arguments used in the call to start_SSL can be controlled by
setting the Mail::IMAPClient "Starttls" attribute to an ARRAY reference containing the
desired arguments.
Version note: method added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.22
status
Example:
my @rawdata = $imap->status( $folder, qw/(Messages)/ )
or die "Error obtaining status: $@\n";
The status method accepts one argument, the name of a folder (or mailbox, to use RFC3501's
terminology), and returns an array containing the results of running the IMAP STATUS
client command against that folder. If additional arguments are supplied then they are
appended to the IMAP STATUS client command string, separated from the rest of the string
and each other with spaces.
If status is not called in an array context then it returns a reference to an array rather
than the array itself.
The status method should not be confused with the Status method (with an uppercase 'S'),
which returns information about the IMAPClient object. (See the section labeled "Status
Methods", below).
store
Example:
$imap->store(@args) or die "Could not store: $@\n";
The store method accepts a message sequence number or comma-separated list of message
sequence numbers as a first argument, a message data item name, and a value for the
message data item. Currently, data items are the word "FLAGS" followed by a space and a
list of flags (in parens). The word "FLAGS" can be modified by prefixing it with either a
"+" or a "-" (to indicate "add these flags" or "remove these flags") and by suffixing it
with ".SILENT" (which reduces the amount of output from the server; very useful with large
message sets). Normally you won't need to call store because there are oodles of methods
that will invoke store for you with the correct arguments. Furthermore, these methods are
friendlier and more flexible with regards to how you specify your arguments. See for
example "see", "deny_seeing", "delete_message", and "restore_message". Or "mark",
"unmark", "set_flag", and "unset_flag".
subject
Example:
my $subject = $imap->subject($msg);
The subject method accepts one argument, a message sequence number (or a message UID, if
the Uid parameter is true). The text in the "Subject" header of that message is returned
(without the "Subject: " prefix). This method is a short-cut for:
my $subject = $imap->get_header($msg, "Subject");
subscribed
Example:
my @subscribedFolders = $imap->subscribed
or warn "Could not find subscribed folders: $@\n";
The subscribed method works like the folders method, above, except that the returned list
(or array reference, if called in scalar context) contains only the subscribed folders.
Like "folders", you can optionally provide a prefix argument to the subscribed method.
tag_and_run
Example:
my $output = $imap->tag_and_run(@args)
or die "Could not tag_and_run: $@\n";
The tag_and_run method accepts one or two arguments. The first argument is a string
containing an IMAP client command, without a tag but with all required arguments. The
optional second argument is a string to look for that will indicate success (without
pattern delimiters). The default is "OK.*".
The tag_and_run method will prefix your string (from the first argument) with the next
transaction number and run the command. It returns an array of output lines from the
command, which you are free to parse as you see fit. Using this method instead of run
(above) will free you from having to worry about handling the tags (and from worrying
about the side affects of naming your own tags).
uidexpunge
Example:
$imap->uidexpunge(@uids) or die "Could not uidexpunge: $@\n";
The uidexpunge method implements the UID EXPUNGE IMAP (RFC4315 UIDPLUS ext) client command
to permanently remove all messages that have the \Deleted flag set and have a UID that is
included in the list of UIDs.
uidexpunge returns an array or arrayref (scalar context) of output lines returned from the
UID EXPUNGE command.
uidexpunge returns undef on failure.
If the server does not support the UIDPLUS extension, this method returns undef.
uidnext
Example:
my $nextUid = $imap->uidnext($folder) or die "uidnext failed: $@\n";
The uidnext method accepts one argument, the name of a folder, and returns the numeric
string that is the next available message UID for that folder.
thread
Example:
my $thread = $imap->thread( $algorithm, $charset, @search_args );
The thread method accepts zero to three arguments. The first argument is the threading
algorithm to use, generally either ORDEREDSUBJECT or REFERENCES. The second argument is
the character set to use, and the third argument is the set of search arguments to use.
If the algorithm is not supplied, it defaults to REFERENCES if available, or
ORDEREDSUBJECT if available. If neither of these is available then the thread method
returns undef.
If the character set is not specified it will default to UTF-8.
If the search arguments are not specified, the default is ALL.
If thread is called for an object connected to a server that does not support the THREADS
extension then the thread method will return "undef".
The threads method will issue the THREAD command as defined in
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5256. It returns an array of threads. Each element in the
array is either a message id or a reference to another array of (sub)threads.
If the "Uid" parameter is set to a true value then the message id's returned in the thread
structure will be message UID's. Otherwise they will be message sequence numbers.
uidvalidity
Example:
my $validity = $imap->uidvalidity($folder)
or die "uidvalidity failed: $@\n";
The uidvalidity method accepts one argument, the name of a folder, and returns the numeric
string that is the unique identifier validity value for the folder.
unmark
Example:
$imap->unmark(@msgs) or die "Could not unmark: $@\n";
The unmark method accepts a list of one or more messages sequence numbers, or a single
reference to an array of one or more message sequence numbers, as its argument(s). It
then unsets the \Flagged flag for those message(s). Of course, if the "Uid" parameter is
set to a true value then those message sequence numbers should really be unique message
id's.
Note that specifying "$imap->unmark(@msgs)" is just a shortcut for specifying
"$imap->unset_flag("Flagged",@msgs)".
Note also that the \Flagged flag is just one of many possible flags. This is a little
confusing, but you'll have to get used to the idea that among the reserved flags specified
in RFC3501 is one name \Flagged. There is no specific meaning for this flag; it means
whatever the mailbox owner (or delegate) wants it to mean when it is turned on.
unseen
Example:
my @unread = $imap->unseen or warn "Could not find unseen msgs: $@\n";
The unseen method performs an IMAP SEARCH UNSEEN search against the selected folder and
returns an array of sequence numbers of messages that have not yet been seen (ie their
\Seen flag is not set). If the "Uid" parameter is true then an array of message UID's
will be returned instead. If called in scalar context than a pointer to the array (rather
than the array itself) will be returned.
unseen_count
Example:
foreach my $f ($imap->folders) {
print "The $f folder has ",
$imap->unseen_count($f)||0, " unseen messages.\n";
}
The unseen_count method accepts the name of a folder as an argument and returns the number
of unseen messages in that folder. If no folder argument is provided then it returns the
number of unseen messages in the currently selected Folder.
unset_flag
Example:
$imap->unset_flag( "\Seen", @msgs )
or die "unset_flag failed: $@\n";
The unset_flag method accepts the name of a flag as its first argument and a list of one
or more messages sequence numbers, or a single reference to an array of one or more
message sequence numbers, as its next argument(s). It then unsets the flag specified for
those message(s). Of course, if the "Uid" parameter is set to a true value then those
message sequence numbers had better be unique message id's, just as you'd expect.
Other IMAP Client Commands
Until release 2.99, when you called a method which did not exist, they where automatically
translated into an IMAP call with the same name via an AUTOLOAD hack. This "feature" was
removed for various reasons: people made typos in the capitalization of method names, and
the program still seemed to work correctly. Besides, it blocked further development of
this module, because people did not contribute their private extensions to the protocol
implementation.
copy($msg, $folder)
Copy a message from the currently selected folder in the folder whose name is in $folder
subscribe($folder)
Subscribe to a folder
CAUTION: Once again, remember to quote your quotes (or use the "Quote" method) if you want
quotes to be part of the IMAP command string.
You can also use the default method to override the behavior of implemented IMAP methods
by changing the case of the method name, preferably to all-uppercase so as not to conflict
with the Class method and accessor method namespace. For example, if you don't want the
"search" method's behavior (which returns a list of message numbers) but would rather have
an array of raw data returned from your "search" operation, you can issue the following
snippet:
my @raw = $imap->SEARCH("SUBJECT","Whatever...");
which is slightly more efficient than the equivalent:
$imap->search("SUBJECT","Whatever...");
my @raw = $imap->Results;
Of course you probably want the search results tucked nicely into a list for you anyway,
in which case you might as well use the "search" method.
Parameters
There are several parameters that influence the behavior of an IMAPClient object. Each is
set by specifying a named value pair during new method invocation as follows:
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new ( parameter => "value",
parameter2 => "value",
...
);
Parameters can also be set after an object has been instantiated by using the parameter's
eponymous accessor method like this:
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new;
$imap->parameter( "value");
$imap->parameter2("value");
The eponymous accessor methods can also be used without arguments to obtain the current
value of the parameter as follows:
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new;
$imap->parameter( "value");
$imap->parameter2("value");
... # A whole bunch of awesome Perl code, omitted for brevity
my $forgot = $imap->parameter;
my $forgot2 = $imap->parameter2;
Note that in these examples I'm using 'parameter' and 'parameter2' as generic parameter
names. The IMAPClient object doesn't actually have parameters named 'parameter' and
'parameter2'. On the contrary, the available parameters are:
Authmechanism
Example:
$imap->Authmechanism("CRAM-MD5");
# or
my $authmech = $imap->Authmechanism();
If specified, the Authmechanism causes the specified authentication mechanism to be used
whenever Mail::IMAPClient would otherwise invoke login. If the value specified for the
Authmechanism parameter is not a valid authentication mechanism for your server then you
will never ever be able to log in again for the rest of your Perl script, probably. So
you might want to check, like this:
my $authmech = "CRAM-MD5";
$imap->has_capability($authmech) and $imap->Authmechanism($authmech);
Of course if you know your server supports your favorite authentication mechanism then you
know, so you can then include your Authmechanism with your new call, as in:
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
User => $user,
Passord => $passord,
Server => $server,
Authmechanism => $authmech,
%etc
);
If Authmechanism is supplied but Authcallback is not then you had better be supporting one
of the authentication mechanisms that Mail::IMAPClient supports "out of the box" (such as
CRAM-MD5).
Authcallback
Example:
$imap->Authcallback( \&callback );
This specifies a default callback to the default authentication mechanism (see
"Authmechanism", above). Together, these two methods replace automatic calls to login
with automatic calls that look like this (sort of):
$imap->authenticate($imap->Authmechanism,$imap->Authcallback);
If Authmechanism is supplied but Authcallback is not then you had better be supporting one
of the authentication mechanisms that Mail::IMAPClient supports "out of the box" (such as
CRAM-MD5).
Authuser
The Authuser parameter is used by the DIGEST-MD5 "Authmechanism".
Typically when you authenticate the username specified in the User parameter is used.
However, when using the DIGEST-MD5 Authmechanism the Authuser can be used to specify a
different username for the login.
This can be useful to mark messages as seen for the Authuser if you don't know the
password of the user as the seen state is often a per-user state.
Buffer
Example:
$Buffer = $imap->Buffer();
# or:
$imap->Buffer($new_value);
The Buffer parameter sets the size of a block of I/O. It is ignored unless "Fast_io",
below, is set to a true value (the default), or unless you are using the "migrate" method.
It's value should be the number of bytes to attempt to read in one I/O operation. The
default value is 4096.
When using the "migrate" method, you can often achieve dramatic improvements in throughput
by adjusting this number upward. However, doing so also entails a memory cost, so if set
too high you risk losing all the benefits of the "migrate" method's chunking algorithm.
Your program can thus terminate with an "out of memory" error and you'll have no one but
yourself to blame.
Note that, as hinted above, the Buffer parameter affects the behavior of the "migrate"
method regardless of whether you have "Fast_io" turned on. Believe me, you don't want to
go around migrating tons of mail without using buffered I/O!
Clear
Example:
$Clear = $imap->Clear();
# or:
$imap->Clear($integer);
The name of this parameter, for historical reasons, is somewhat misleading. It should be
named Wrap, because it specifies how many transactions are stored in the wrapped history
buffer. But it didn't always work that way; the buffer used to actually get cleared. The
name though remains the same in the interests of backwards compatibility.
Clear specifies that the object's history buffer should be wrapped after every n
transactions, where n is the value specified for the Clear parameter. Calling the
eponymous Clear method without an argument will return the current value of the Clear
parameter but will not cause clear the history buffer to wrap.
Setting Clear to 0 turns off automatic history buffer wrapping, and setting it to 1 turns
off the history buffer facility (except for the last transaction, which cannot be disabled
without breaking the IMAPClient module). Setting Clear to 0 will not cause an immediate
clearing of the history buffer; setting it to 1 (or any other number) will (except of
course for that inevitable last transaction).
The default Clear value is set to five (5) in order to conserve memory.
Compress
If set, Mail::IMAPClient attempts to enable use of the RFC4978 COMPRESS DEFLATE extension.
This requires that the server supports this CAPABILITY. This attribute can be set to a
true value to enable or an ARRAYREF to control the arguments used in the call to
Compress::Zlib::deflateInit().
Mail::IMAPClient will automatically use Compress::Zlib to deflate/inflate the data to/from
the server. This attribute is used in the "login" method.
See also "compress" and "capability".
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.30
Debug
Example:
$Debug = $imap->Debug();
# or:
$imap->Debug($true_or_false);
Sets the debugging flag to either a true or false value. Can be supplied with the "new"
method call or separately by calling the Debug object method. Use of this parameter is
strongly recommended when debugging scripts and required when reporting bugs.
Debug_fh
Example:
$Debug_fh = $imap->Debug_fh();
# or:
$imap->Debug_fh($fileHandle);
Specifies the file handle to which debugging information should be printed. It can either
a file handle object reference or a file handle glob. The default is to print debugging
info to STDERR.
For example, you can:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
use IO::File;
# set $user, $pass, and $server here
my $dh = IO::File->new(">debugging.output")
or die "Can't open debugging.output: $!\n";
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
User=>$user, Password=>$pass, Server=>$server, Debug=>1, Debug_fh => $dh
);
which is the same as:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
use IO::File;
# set $user, $pass, and $server here
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
User => $user,
Password => $pass,
Server => $server,
Debug => "yes, please",
Debug_fh => IO::File->new(">debugging.output")
|| die "Can't open debugging.output: $!\n"
);
You can also:
use Mail::IMAPClient;
# set $user, $pass, and $server here
open(DBG,">debugging.output")
or die "Can't open debugging.output: $!\n";
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
User=>$user, Password=>$pass, Server=>$server, Debug=> 1, Debug_fh => *DBG
);
Specifying this parameter is not very useful unless "Debug" is set to a true value.
Domain
The Domain parameter is used by the NTLM "Authmechanism". The domain is an optional
parameter for NTLM authentication.
EnableServerResponseInLiteral
Removed in 2.99_01 (now autodetect)
Fast_io
Example:
$Fast_io = $imap->Fast_io();
# or:
$imap->Fast_io($true_or_false);
The Fast_io parameter controls whether or not the Mail::IMAPClient object will attempt to
use non-blocking I/O on the IMAP socket. It is turned on by default (unless the caller
provides the socket to be used).
See also "Buffer".
Folder
Example:
$Folder = $imap->Folder();
# or:
$imap->Folder($new_value);
The Folder parameter returns the name of the currently-selected folder (in case you
forgot). It can also be used to set the name of the currently selected folder, which is
completely unnecessary if you used the "select" method (or "select"'s read-only
equivalent, the "examine" method) to select it.
Note that setting the Folder parameter does not automatically select a new folder; you use
the "select" or "examine" object methods for that. Generally, the Folder parameter should
only be queried (by using the no-argument form of the Folder method). You will only need
to set the Folder parameter if you use some mysterious technique of your own for selecting
a folder, which you probably won't do.
Ignoresizeerrors
Certain (caching) servers, like Exchange 2007, often report the wrong message size.
Instead of chopping the message into a size that it fits the specified size, the reported
size will be simply ignored when this parameter is set to 1.
Keepalive
Some firewalls and network gear like to timeout connections prematurely if the connection
sits idle. The Keepalive parameter, when set to a true value, affects the behavior of
"new" and "Socket" by enabling SO_KEEPALIVE on the socket.
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.17
Maxcommandlength
The Maxcommandlength attribute is used by fetch() to limit length of commands sent to a
server. The default is 1000 chars, following the recommendation of RFC2683 section
3.2.1.5.
Note: this attribute should also be used for several other methods but this has not yet
been implemented please feel free to file bugs for methods where you run into problems
with this.
This attribute should remove the need for utilities like imapsync to create their own
split() functions and instead allows Mail::IMAPClient to DWIM.
In practice, this parameter has proven to be useful to overcome a limit of 8000 octets for
UW-IMAPD and 16384 octets for Courier/Cyrus IMAP servers.
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.17
Maxtemperrors
Example:
$Maxtemperrors = $imap->Maxtemperrors();
# or:
$imap->Maxtemperrors($number);
The Maxtemperrors parameter specifies the number of times a read or write operation is
allowed to fail on a "Resource Temporarily Available" (e.g. EAGAIN) error. The default
setting is undef which means there is no limit.
Setting this parameter to the string "unlimited" (instead of undef) to ignore "Resource
Temporarily Unavailable" errors is deprecated.
Note: This setting should be used with caution and may be removed in a future release.
Setting this can cause methods to return to the caller before data is received (and then
handled) properly thereby possibly then leaving the module in a bad state. In the future,
this behavior may be changed in an attempt to avoid this situation.
Password
Example:
$Password = $imap->Password();
# or:
$imap->Password($new_value);
Specifies the password to use when logging into the IMAP service on the host specified in
the Server parameter as the user specified in the User parameter. Can be supplied with
the new method call or separately by calling the Password object method.
If Server, User, and Password are all provided to the "new" method, then the newly
instantiated object will be connected to the host specified in Server (at either the port
specified in Port or the default port 143) and then logged on as the user specified in the
User parameter (using the password provided in the Password parameter). See the
discussion of the "new" method, below.
Peek
Example:
$Peek = $imap->Peek();
# or:
$imap->Peek($true_or_false);
Setting Peek to a true value will prevent the "body_string", "message_string" and
"message_to_file" methods from automatically setting the \Seen flag. Setting "Peek" to 0
(zero) will force "body_string", "message_string", "message_to_file", and "parse_headers"
to always set the \Seen flag.
The default is to set the seen flag whenever you fetch the body of a message but not when
you just fetch the headers. Passing undef to the eponymous Peek method will reset the
Peek parameter to its pristine, default state.
Port
Example:
$Port = $imap->Port();
# or:
$imap->Port($new_value);
Specifies the port on which the IMAP server is listening. A default value of 993 (if
"Ssl" is true) or 143 is set during a call to "connect" if no value is provided by the
caller. This argument can be supplied with the "new" method call or separately by calling
the "Port" object method.
Prewritemethod
Prewritemethod parameter should contain a reference to a subroutine that will do "special
things" to data before it is sent to the IMAP server (such as encryption or signing).
This method will be called immediately prior to sending an IMAP client command to the
server. Its first argument is a reference to the Mail::IMAPClient object and the second
argument is a string containing the command that will be sent to the server. Your
Prewritemethod should return a string that has been signed or encrypted or whatever; this
returned string is what will actually be sent to the server.
Your Prewritemethod will probably need to know more than this to do whatever it does. It
is recommended that you tuck all other pertinent information into a hash, and store a
reference to this hash somewhere where your method can get to it, possibly in the
Mail::IMAPClient object itself.
Note that this method should not actually send anything over the socket connection to the
server; it merely converts data prior to sending.
See also "Readmethod".
Ranges
Example:
$imap->Ranges(1);
# or:
my $search = $imap->search(@search_args);
if ( $imap->Ranges) { # $search is a MessageSet object
print "This is my condensed search result: $search\n";
print "This is every message in the search result: ",
join(",",@$search),"\n;
}
If set to a true value, then the "search" method will return a
Mail::IMAPClient::MessageSet object if called in a scalar context, instead of the array
reference that fetch normally returns when called in a scalar context. If set to zero or
if undefined, then search will continue to return an array reference when called in scalar
context.
This parameter has no affect on the search method when search is called in a list context.
RawSocket
Example:
$socket = $imap->RawSocket;
# or:
$imap->RawSocket($socketh);
The RawSocket method can be used to obtain the socket handle of the current connection
(say, to do I/O on the connection that is not otherwise supported by Mail::IMAPClient) or
to replace the current socket with a new handle (for instance an SSL handle, see
IO::Socket::SSL, but be sure to see the "Socket" method as well).
If you supply a socket handle yourself, either by doing something like:
$imap=Mail::IMAPClient->new(RawSocket => $sock, User => ... );
or by doing something like:
$imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(User => $user,
Password => $pass, Server => $host);
# blah blah blah
$imap->RawSocket($ssl);
then it will be up to you to establish the connection AND to authenticate, either via the
"login" method, or the fancier "authenticate", or, since you know so much anyway, by just
doing raw I/O against the socket until you're logged in. If you do any of this then you
should also set the "State" parameter yourself to reflect the current state of the object
(i.e. Connected, Authenticated, etc).
Note that no operation will be attempted on the socket when this method is called. In
particular, after the TCP connections towards the IMAP server is established, the protocol
mandates the server to send an initial greeting message, and you will have to explicitly
cope with this message before doing any other operation, e.g. trying to call "login".
Caveat emptor.
For a more DWIM approach to setting the socket see "Socket".
Readmethod
Example:
$imap->Readmethod( # IMAP, HANDLE, BUFFER, LENGTH, OFFSET
sub {
my ( $self, $handle, $buffer, $count, $offset ) = @_;
my $rc = sysread( $handle, $$buffer, $count, $offset );
# do something useful here...
}
);
Readmethod should contain a reference to a subroutine that will replace sysread. The
subroutine will be passed the following arguments: first the used Mail::IMAPClient object.
Second, a reference to a socket. Third, a reference to a scalar variable into which data
is read (BUFFER). The data placed here should be "finished data", so if you are decrypting
or removing signatures then be sure to do that before you place data into this buffer.
Fourth, the number of bytes requested to be read; the LENGTH of the request. Lastly, the
OFFSET into the BUFFER where the data should be read. If not supplied it should default
to zero.
Note that this method completely replaces reads from the connection to the server, so if
you define one of these then your subroutine will have to actually do the read. It is for
things like this that we have the "Socket" parameter and eponymous accessor method.
Your Readmethod will probably need to know more than this to do whatever it does. It is
recommended that you tuck all other pertinent information into a hash, and store a
reference to this hash somewhere where your method can get to it, possibly in the
Mail::IMAPClient object itself.
See also "Prewritemethod".
Readmoremethod
Readmoremethod should contain a reference to a subroutine that will replace/enhance the
behavior of the internal _read_more() method. The subroutine will be passed the following
arguments: first the used Mail::IMAPClient object. Second, a reference to a socket.
Third, a timeout value which is used as the timeout value for CORE::select() by default.
Depending upon changes/features introduced by Readmethod changes may be required here.
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.30
Reconnectretry
If an IMAP connection sits idle too long, the connection may be closed by the server or
firewall, etc. The Reconnectretry parameter, when given a positive integer value, will
cause Mail::IMAPClient to retrying IMAP commands up to X times when an EPIPE or ECONNRESET
error occurs. This is disabled (0) by default.
See also "Keepalive"
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.17
Server
Example:
$Server = $imap->Server();
# or:
$imap->Server($hostname);
Specifies the hostname or IP address of the host running the IMAP server. If provided as
part of the "new" method call, then the new IMAP object will automatically be connected at
the time of instantiation. (See the "new" method, below.) Can be supplied with the "new"
method call or separately by calling the Server object method.
Showcredentials
Normally debugging output will mask the login credentials when the plain text login
mechanism is used. Setting Showcredentials to a true value will suppress this, so that
you can see the string being passed back and forth during plain text login. Only set this
to true when you are debugging problems with the IMAP LOGIN command, and then turn it off
right away when you're finished working on that problem.
Example:
print "This is very risky!\n" if $imap->Showcredentials();
# or:
$imap->Showcredentials(0); # mask credentials again
Socket
PLEASE NOTE The semantics of this method has changed as of version 2.99_04 of this module.
If you need the old semantics use "RawSocket".
Example:
$Socket = $imap->Socket();
# or:
$imap->Socket($socket_fh);
The Socket method can be used to obtain the socket handle of the current connection. This
may be necessary to do I/O on the connection that is not otherwise supported by
Mail::IMAPClient) or to replace the current socket with a new handle (for instance an SSL
handle, see IO::Socket::SSL).
If you supply a socket handle yourself, either by doing something like:
$imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new( Socket => $sock, User => ... );
or by doing something like:
$imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
User => $user, Password => $pass, Server => $host
);
$imap->Socket($ssl);
then you are responsible for establishing the connection, i.e. make sure that $ssl in the
example is a valid and connected socket.
This method is primarily used to provide a drop-in replacement for IO::Socket::(INET|IP),
used by "connect" by default. In fact, this method is called by "connect" itself after
having established a suitable IO::Socket::(INET|IP) socket connection towards the target
server; for this reason, this method also carries the normal operations associated with
"connect", namely:
o read the initial greeting message from the server;
o call "login" if the conditions apply (see "connect" for details);
o leave the Mail::IMAPClient object in a suitable state.
For these reasons, the following example will work "out of the box":
use IO::Socket::SSL;
my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new
( User => 'your-username',
Password => 'your-password',
Socket => IO::Socket::SSL->new
( Proto => 'tcp',
PeerAddr => 'some.imap.server',
PeerPort => 993, # IMAP over SSL standard port
),
);
If you need more control over the socket, e.g. you have to implement a fancier
authentication method, see "RawSocket".
Starttls
If an IMAP connection must start TLS/SSL after connecting to a server then set this
attribute. If the value is set to an arrayref then they will be used as arguments to
IO::Socket::SSL->start_SSL. By default this connection is set to blocking while
establishing the connection with a timeout of 30 seconds. The socket will be reset to the
original blocking/non-blocking value after a successful TLS negotiation has occurred. The
arguments used in the call to start_SSL can be controlled by setting this attribute to an
ARRAY reference containing the desired arguments.
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.22
Socketargs
The arguments used in the call to IO::Socket::{UNIX|INET|IP|SSL}->new can be controlled by
setting this attribute to an ARRAY reference containing the desired arguments.
For example, to always pass MultiHomed => 1 to IO::Socket::...->new the following can be
used:
$imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(
..., Socketargs => [ MultiHomed => 1 ], ...
);
See also "Ssl" for specific control of the args to IO::Socket::SSL.
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.34
Ssl
If an IMAP connection requires SSL you can set the Ssl attribute to '1' and
Mail::IMAPClient will automatically use IO::Socket::SSL instead of IO::Socket::(INET|IP)
to connect to the server. This attribute is used in the "connect" method. The arguments
used in the call to IO::Socket::SSL->new can be controlled by setting this attribute to an
ARRAY reference containing the desired arguments.
See also "connect" for details on connection initiation and "Socket" and "Rawsocket" if
you need to take more control of connection management.
Version note: attribute added in Mail::IMAPClient 3.18
Supportedflags
Especially when "migrate()" is used, the receiving peer may need to be configured
explicitly with the list of supported flags; that may be different from the source IMAP
server.
The names are to be specified as an ARRAY. Black-slashes and casing will be ignored.
You may also specify a CODE reference, which will be called for each of the flags
separately. In this case, the flags are not (yet) normalized. The returned lists of the
CODE calls are shape the resulting flag list.
Timeout
Example:
$Timeout = $imap->Timeout();
# or:
$imap->Timeout($seconds);
Specifies the timeout value in seconds for reads (default is 600). Specifying a Timeout
will prevent Mail::IMAPClient from blocking in a read.
Since timeouts are implemented via the Perl select operator, the Timeout parameter may be
set to a fractional number of seconds. Setting Timeout to 0 (zero) disables the timeout
feature.
Uid
Example:
$Uid = $imap->Uid();
# or:
$imap->Uid($true_or_false);
If "Uid" is set to a true value (i.e. 1) then the behavior of the "fetch", "search",
"copy", and "store" methods (and their derivatives) is changed so that arguments that
would otherwise be message sequence numbers are treated as message UID's and so that
return values (in the case of the "search" method and its derivatives) that would normally
be message sequence numbers are instead message UID's.
Internally this is implemented as a switch that, if turned on, causes methods that would
otherwise issue an IMAP FETCH, STORE, SEARCH, or COPY client command to instead issue UID
FETCH, UID STORE, UID SEARCH, or UID COPY, respectively. The main difference between
message sequence numbers and message UID's is that, according to RFC3501, UID's must not
change during a session and should not change between sessions, and must never be reused.
Sequence numbers do not have that same guarantee and in fact may be reused right away.
Since folder names also have a unique identifier (UIDVALIDITY), which is provided when the
folder is "select"ed or "examine"d or by doing something like
"$imap->status($folder,"UIDVALIDITY"), it is possible to uniquely identify every message
on the server, although normally you won't need to bother.
The methods currently affected by turning on the "Uid" flag are:
copy fetch
search store
message_string message_uid
body_string flags
move size
parse_headers thread
Note that if for some reason you only want the "Uid" parameter turned on for one command,
then you can choose between the following two snippets, which are equivalent:
Example 1:
$imap->Uid(1);
my @uids = $imap->search('SUBJECT',"Just a silly test"); #
$imap->Uid(0);
Example 2:
my @uids;
foreach $r ($imap->UID("SEARCH","SUBJECT","Just a silly test") {
chomp $r;
$r =~ s/\r$//;
$r =~ s/^\*\s+SEARCH\s+// or next;
push @uids, grep(/\d/,(split(/\s+/,$r)));
}
In the second example, we used the default method to issue the UID IMAP client command,
being careful to use an all-uppercase method name so as not to inadvertently call the
"Uid" accessor method. Then we parsed out the message UIDs manually, since we don't have
the benefit of the built-in "search" method doing it for us.
Please be very careful when turning the "Uid" parameter on and off throughout a script.
If you loose track of whether you've got the "Uid" parameter turned on you might do
something sad, like deleting the wrong message. Remember, like all eponymous accessor
methods, the Uid method without arguments will return the current value for the "Uid"
parameter, so do yourself a favor and check. The safest approach is probably to turn it
on at the beginning (or just let it default to being on) and then leave it on. (Remember
that leaving it turned off can lead to problems if changes to a folder's contents cause
resequencing.)
By default, the "Uid" parameter is turned on.
User
Example:
$User = $imap->User();
# or:
$imap->User($userid);
Specifies the userid to use when logging into the IMAP service. Can be supplied with the
"new" method call or separately by calling the User object method.
Parameters can be set during "new" method invocation by passing named parameter/value
pairs to the method, or later by calling the parameter's eponymous object method.
Status Methods
There are several object methods that return the status of the object. They can be used
at any time to check the status of an IMAPClient object, but are particularly useful for
determining the cause of failure when a connection and login are attempted as part of a
single "new" method invocation. The status methods are:
Escaped_history
Example:
my @history = $imap->Escaped_history;
The Escaped_history method is almost identical to the History method. Unlike the History
method, however, server output transmitted literally will be wrapped in double quotes,
with all double quotes, backslashes escaped. If called in a scalar context,
Escaped_history returns an array reference rather than an array.
Escaped_history is useful if you are retrieving output and processing it manually, and you
are depending on the above special characters to delimit the data. It is not useful when
retrieving message contents; use message_string or body_string for that.
Escaped_results
Example:
my @results = $imap->Escaped_results;
The Escaped_results method is almost identical to the Results method. Unlike the Results
method, however, server output transmitted literally will be wrapped in double quotes,
with all double quotes, backslashes escaped. If called in a scalar context,
Escaped_results returns an array reference rather than an array.
Escaped_results is useful if you are retrieving output and processing it manually, and you
are depending on the above special characters to delimit the data. It is not useful when
retrieving message contents; use message_string or body_string for that.
History
Example:
my @history = $imap->History;
The History method is almost identical to the "Results" method. Unlike the "Results"
method, however, the IMAP command that was issued to create the results being returned is
not included in the returned results. If called in a scalar context, History returns an
array reference rather than an array.
IsUnconnected
returns a true value if the object is currently in an "Unconnected" state.
IsConnected
returns a true value if the object is currently in either a "Connected", "Authenticated",
or "Selected" state.
IsAuthenticated
returns a true value if the object is currently in either an "Authenticated" or "Selected"
state.
IsSelected
returns a true value if the object is currently in a "Selected" state.
LastError
Internally LastError is implemented just like a parameter (as described in "Parameters",
above). There is a LastError attribute and an eponymous accessor method which returns the
LastError text string describing the last error condition encountered by the server.
Note that some errors are more serious than others, so LastError's value is only
meaningful if you encounter an error condition that you don't like. For example, if you
use the "exists" method to see if a folder exists and the folder does not exist, then an
error message will be recorded in LastError even though this is not a particularly serious
error. On the other hand, if you didn't use "exists" and just tried to "select" a non-
existing folder, then "select" would return "undef" after setting LastError to something
like "NO SELECT failed: Can't open mailbox "mailbox": no such mailbox". At this point it
would be useful to print out the contents of LastError as you die.
LastIMAPCommand
New in version 2.0.4, LastIMAPCommand returns the exact IMAP command string to be sent to
the server. Useful mainly in constructing error messages when "LastError" just isn't
enough.
Report
The Report method returns an array containing a history of the IMAP session up to the
point that Report was called. It is primarily meant to assist in debugging but can also
be used to retrieve raw output for manual parsing. The value of the "Clear" parameter
controls how many transactions are in the report.
Results
The Results method returns an array containing the results of one IMAP client command. It
accepts one argument, the transaction number of the command whose results are to be
returned. If transaction number is unspecified then Results returns the results of the
last IMAP client command issued. If called in a scalar context, Results returns an array
reference rather than an array.
State
The State method returns a numerical value that indicates the current status of the
IMAPClient object. If invoked with an argument, it will set the object's state to that
value. If invoked without an argument, it behaves just like "Status", below.
Normally you will not have to invoke this function. An exception is if you are bypassing
the Mail::IMAPClient module's "connect" and/or "login" modules to set up your own
connection (say, for example, over a secure socket), in which case you must manually do
what the "connect" and "login" methods would otherwise do for you.
Status
The Status method returns a numerical value that indicates the current status of the
IMAPClient object. (Not to be confused with the "status" method, all lower-case, which is
the implementation of the STATUS IMAP client command.)
Transaction
The Transaction method returns the tag value (or transaction number) of the last IMAP
client command.
Custom Authentication Mechanisms
If you just want to use plain text authentication or any of the supported "Advanced
Authentication Mechanisms" then there is no need to read this section.
There are a number of methods and parameters that you can use to build your own
authentication mechanism. All of the methods and parameters discussed in this section are
described in more detail elsewhere in this document. This section provides a starting
point for building your own authentication mechanism.
There are many authentication mechanisms out there, if your preferred mechanism is not
currently supported but you manage to get it working please consider donating them to this
module. Patches and suggestions are always welcome.
Support for add-on authentication mechanisms in Mail::IMAPClient is pretty straight
forward. You create a callback to be used to provide the response to the server's
challenge. The "Authcallback" parameter contains a reference to the callback, which can
be an anonymous subroutine or a named subroutine. Then, you identify your authentication
mechanism, either via the "Authmechanism" parameter or as an argument to "authenticate".
You may also need to provide a subroutine to encrypt (or whatever) data before it is sent
to the server. The "Prewritemethod" parameter must contain a reference to this
subroutine. And, you will need to decrypt data from the server; a reference to the
subroutine that does this must be stored in the "Readmethod" parameter.
This framework is based on the assumptions that a) the mechanism you are using requires a
challenge-response exchange, and b) the mechanism does not fundamentally alter the
exchange between client and server but merely wraps the exchange in a layer of encryption.
It also assumes that the line-oriented nature of the IMAP conversation is preserved;
authentication mechanisms that break up messages into blocks of a predetermined size may
still be possible but will certainly be more difficult to implement.
Alternatively, if you have access to imtest, a utility included in the Cyrus IMAP
distribution, you can use that utility to broker your communications with the IMAP server.
This is quite easy to implement. An example, examples/imtestExample.pl, can be found in
the "examples" subdirectory of the source distribution.
The following list summarizes the methods and parameters that you may find useful in
implementing advanced authentication:
The authenticate method
The "authenticate" method uses the "Authmechanism" parameter to determine how to
authenticate with the server see the method documentation for details.
Socket and RawSocket
The "Socket" and "RawSocket" methods provide access to the socket connection. The
socket is typically automatically created by the "connect" method, but if you are
implementing an advanced authentication technique you may choose to set up your own
socket connection and then set this parameter manually, bypassing the connect method
completely. This is also useful if you want to use IO::Socket::(INET|IP) alternatives
like IO::Socket::SSL and need full control.
"RawSocket" simply gets/sets the socket without attempting any interaction on it. In
this case, you have to be sure to handle all the preliminary operations and manually
set the Mail::IMAPClient object in sync with its actual status with respect to this
socket (see below for additional parameters regarding this, especially the "State"
parameter).
Unlike "RawSocket", "Socket" attempts to carry on preliminary connection phases if the
conditions apply. If both parameters are present, this takes the precedence over
"RawSocket". If "Starttls" is set, then the "starttls" method will be called by
"Socket".
PLEASE NOTE As of version 2.99_04 of this module, semantics for "Socket" have changed
to make it more "DWIM". "RawSocket" was introduced as a replacement for the "Socket"
parameter in older version.
State, Server, User, Password, Proxy and Domain Parameters
If you need to make your own connection to the server and perform your authentication
manually, then you can set these parameters to keep your Mail::IMAPClient object in
sync with its actual status. Of these, only the "State" parameter is always
necessary. The others need to be set only if you think your program will need them
later.
Authmechanism
Set this to the value that AUTHENTICATE should send to the server as the
authentication mechanism. If you are brokering your own authentication then this
parameter may be less useful. It exists primarily so that you can set it when you
call "new" to instantiate your object. The "new" method will call "connect", which
will call "login". If "login" sees that you have set an Authmechanism then it will
call authenticate, using your Authmechanism and Authcallback parameters as arguments.
Authcallback
The "Authcallback", if set, holds a pointer to a subroutine (CODEREF). The "login"
method will use this as the callback argument to the authenticate method if the
Authmechanism and Authcallback parameters are both set. If you set Authmechanism but
not Authcallback then the default callback for your mechanism will be used. All
supported authentication mechanisms have a default callback; in every other case not
supplying the callback results in an error.
Most advanced authentication mechanisms require a challenge-response exchange. After
the "authenticate" method sends "<tag> AUTHENTICATE <Authmechanism>\015\012" to the
IMAP server, the server replies with a challenge. The "authenticate" method then
invokes the code whose reference is stored in the Authcallback parameter as follows:
$Authcallback->( $challenge, $imap )
where $Authcallback is the code reference stored in the Authcallback parameter,
$challenge is the challenge received from the IMAP server, and $imap is a pointer to
the Mail::IMAPClient object. The return value from the Authcallback routine should be
the response to the challenge, and that return value will be sent by the
"authenticate" method to the server.
Prewritemethod/Readmethod
The Prewritemethod can hold a subroutine that will do whatever encryption is necessary
and then return the result to the caller so it in turn can be sent to the server.
The Readmethod can hold a subroutine to be used to replace sysread usually performed
by Mail::IMAPClient.
See "Prewritemethod" and "Readmethod" for details.
REPORTING BUGS
Please file bug reports via https://github.com/plobbes/mail-imapclient/issues
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (C) 1999-2003 The Kernen Group, Inc.
Copyright (C) 2007-2009 Mark Overmeer
Copyright (C) 2010-2021 Phil Pearl (Lobbes)
All rights reserved.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.0 or, at your option, any later version of
Perl 5 you may have available.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
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