# phpman > perldoc > Mail::Address

## NAME
    [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown) - parse mail addresses

## SYNOPSIS
     use [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown);
     my @addrs = [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->parse($line);

     foreach $addr (@addrs) {
         print $addr->format,"\n";
     }

## DESCRIPTION
    "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" extracts and manipulates email addresses from a message header. It cannot be
    used to extract addresses from some random text. You can use this module to create RFC822
    compliant fields.

    Although "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" is a very popular subject for books, and is used in many applications,
    it does a very poor job on the more complex message fields. It does only handle simple address
    formats (which covers about 95% of what can be found). Problems are with

    *   no support for address groups, even not with the semi-colon as separator between addresses;

    *   limited support for escapes in phrases and comments. There are cases where it can get wrong;
        and

    *   you have to take care of most escaping when you create an address yourself: "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)"
        does not do that for you.

    Often requests are made to the maintainers of this code improve this situation, but this is not
    a good idea, where it will break zillions of existing applications. If you wish for a fully
    RFC2822 compliant implementation you may take a look at [Mail::Message::Field::Full](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AFull/markdown), part of
    MailBox.

    . Example

      my $s = [Mail::Message::Field::Full](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AFull/markdown)->new($from_header);
      # ref $s isa [Mail::Message::Field::Addresses](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddresses/markdown);

      my @g = $s->groups;          # all groups, at least one
      # ref $g[0] isa [Mail::Message::Field::AddrGroup](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddrGroup/markdown);
      my $ga = $g[0]->addresses;   # group addresses

      my @a = $s->addresses;       # all addresses
      # ref $a[0] isa [Mail::Message::Field::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMessage%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddress/markdown);

## METHODS
### Constructors
    [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->new( $phrase, $address, [ $comment ] )
        Create a new "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" object which represents an address with the elements given. In
        a message these 3 elements would be seen like:

         PHRASE <ADDRESS> (COMMENT)
         ADDRESS (COMMENT)

        example:

         [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->new("Perl5 Porters", "<perl5-porters@africa.nicoh.com>");

    $obj->parse($line)
        Parse the given line a return a list of extracted "[Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)" objects. The line would
        normally be one taken from a To,Cc or Bcc line in a message

        example:

         my @addr = [Mail::Address](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AAddress/markdown)->parse($line);

### Accessors
    $obj->address()
        Return the address part of the object.

    $obj->comment()
        Return the comment part of the object

    $obj->format(@addresses)
        Return a string representing the address in a suitable form to be placed on a "To", "Cc", or
        "Bcc" line of a message. This method is called on the first address to be used; other
        specified addresses will be appended, separated by commas.

    $obj->phrase()
        Return the phrase part of the object.

### Smart accessors
    $obj->host()
        Return the address excluding the user id and '@'

    $obj->name()
        Using the information contained within the object attempt to identify what the person or
        groups name is.

        Note: This function tries to be smart with the "phrase" of the email address, which is
        probably a very bad idea. Consider to use phrase() itself.

    $obj->user()
        Return the address excluding the '@' and the mail domain

## SEE ALSO
    This module is part of the MailTools distribution, <http://perl.overmeer.net/mailtools/>.

## AUTHORS
    The MailTools bundle was developed by Graham Barr. Later, Mark Overmeer took over maintenance
    without commitment to further development.

    [Mail::Cap](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3ACap/markdown) by Gisle Aas <<aas@oslonett.no>>. [Mail::Field::AddrList](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AField%3A%3AAddrList/markdown) by Peter Orbaek <<poe@cit.dk>>.
    [Mail::Mailer](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3AMailer/markdown) and [Mail::Send](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/Mail%3A%3ASend/markdown) by Tim Bunce <<Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk>>. For other contributors see
    ChangeLog.

## LICENSE
    Copyrights 1995-2000 Graham Barr <<gbarr@pobox.com>> and 2001-2017 Mark Overmeer
    <<perl@overmeer.net>>.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
    Perl itself. See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>