NAME¶
MIME::Words - deal with RFC 2047 encoded words
SYNOPSIS¶
Before reading further, you should see MIME::Tools to make sure that you
understand where this module fits into the grand scheme of things. Go on, do
it now. I'll wait.
Ready? Ok...
use MIME::Words qw(:all);
### Decode the string into another string, forgetting the charsets:
$decoded = decode_mimewords(
'To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Keld_J=F8rn_Simonsen?= <keld@dkuug.dk>',
);
### Split string into array of decoded [DATA,CHARSET] pairs:
@decoded = decode_mimewords(
'To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Keld_J=F8rn_Simonsen?= <keld@dkuug.dk>',
);
### Encode a single unsafe word:
$encoded = encode_mimeword("\xABFran\xE7ois\xBB");
### Encode a string, trying to find the unsafe words inside it:
$encoded = encode_mimewords("Me and \xABFran\xE7ois\xBB in town");
DESCRIPTION¶
Fellow Americans, you probably won't know what the hell this module is for.
Europeans, Russians, et al, you probably do. ":-)".
For example, here's a valid MIME header you might get:
From: =?US-ASCII?Q?Keith_Moore?= <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Keld_J=F8rn_Simonsen?= <keld@dkuug.dk>
CC: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9_?= Pirard <PIRARD@vm1.ulg.ac.be>
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?B?SWYgeW91IGNhbiByZWFkIHRoaXMgeW8=?=
=?ISO-8859-2?B?dSB1bmRlcnN0YW5kIHRoZSBleGFtcGxlLg==?=
=?US-ASCII?Q?.._cool!?=
The fields basically decode to (sorry, I can only approximate the Latin
characters with 7 bit sequences /o and 'e):
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Keld J/orn Simonsen <keld@dkuug.dk>
CC: Andr'e Pirard <PIRARD@vm1.ulg.ac.be>
Subject: If you can read this you understand the example... cool!
PUBLIC INTERFACE¶
- decode_mimewords ENCODED
- Function. Go through the string looking for RFC 2047-style
"Q" (quoted-printable, sort of) or "B" (base64)
encoding, and decode them.
In an array context, splits the ENCODED string into a list of
decoded "[DATA, CHARSET]" pairs, and returns that list.
Unencoded data are returned in a 1-element array "[DATA]",
giving an effective CHARSET of "undef".
$enc = '=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Keld_J=F8rn_Simonsen?= <keld@dkuug.dk>';
foreach (decode_mimewords($enc)) {
print "", ($_->[1] || 'US-ASCII'), ": ", $_->[0], "\n";
}
In a scalar context, joins the "data" elements of the
above list together, and returns that. Warning: this is
information-lossy, and probably not what you want, but if you
know that all charsets in the ENCODED string are identical, it might be
useful to you. (Before you use this, please see "unmime" in
MIME::WordDecoder, which is probably what you want.)
In the event of a syntax error, $@ will be set to a description of the
error, but parsing will continue as best as possible (so as to get
something back when decoding headers). $@ will be false if no error
was detected.
Any arguments past the ENCODED string are taken to define a hash of
options:
- encode_mimeword RAW, [ENCODING], [CHARSET]
- Function. Encode a single RAW "word" that has unsafe
characters. The "word" will be encoded in its entirety.
### Encode "<<Franc,ois>>":
$encoded = encode_mimeword("\xABFran\xE7ois\xBB");
You may specify the ENCODING ("Q" or "B"), which
defaults to "Q". You may specify the CHARSET, which defaults to
"iso-8859-1".
- encode_mimewords RAW, [OPTS]
- Function. Given a RAW string, try to find and encode all
"unsafe" sequences of characters:
### Encode a string with some unsafe "words":
$encoded = encode_mimewords("Me and \xABFran\xE7ois\xBB");
Returns the encoded string. Any arguments past the RAW string are taken to
define a hash of options:
- Charset
- Encode all unsafe stuff with this charset. Default is 'ISO-8859-1', a.k.a.
"Latin-1".
- Encoding
- The encoding to use, "q" or "b". The default is
"q".
Warning: this is a quick-and-dirty solution, intended for character sets
which overlap ASCII.
It does not comply with the RFC 2047 rules
regarding the use of encoded words in message headers. You may want to
roll your own variant, using "encode_mimeword()", for your
application.
Thanks to Jan Kasprzak for reminding me about this
problem.
SEE ALSO¶
MIME::Base64, MIME::QuotedPrint, MIME::Tools
For other implementations of this or similar functionality (particularly, ones
with proper UTF8 support), see:
Encode::MIME::Header, MIME::EncWords, MIME::AltWords
At some future point, one of these implementations will likely replace
MIME::Words and MIME::Words will become deprecated.
NOTES¶
Exports its principle functions by default, in keeping with MIME::Base64 and
MIME::QuotedPrint.
AUTHOR¶
Eryq (
eryq@zeegee.com), ZeeGee Software Inc
(
http://www.zeegee.com). David F. Skoll (dfs@roaringpenguin.com)
http://www.roaringpenguin.com
All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Thanks also to...
Kent Boortz For providing the idea, and the baseline
RFC-1522-decoding code!
KJJ at PrimeNet For requesting that this be split into
its own module.
Stephane Barizien For reporting a nasty bug.