NAME¶
Net::POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3 Client class (RFC1939)
SYNOPSIS¶
use Net::POP3;
# Constructors
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host');
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host', Timeout => 60);
if ($pop->login($username, $password) > 0) {
my $msgnums = $pop->list; # hashref of msgnum => size
foreach my $msgnum (keys %$msgnums) {
my $msg = $pop->get($msgnum);
print @$msg;
$pop->delete($msgnum);
}
}
$pop->quit;
DESCRIPTION¶
This module implements a client interface to the POP3 protocol, enabling a perl5
application to talk to POP3 servers. This documentation assumes that you are
familiar with the POP3 protocol described in RFC1939.
A new Net::POP3 object must be created with the
new method. Once this has
been done, all POP3 commands are accessed via method calls on the object.
The Net::POP3 class is a subclass of Net::Cmd and IO::Socket::INET.
CONSTRUCTOR¶
- new ( [ HOST ] [, OPTIONS ] )
- This is the constructor for a new Net::POP3 object. "HOST" is
the name of the remote host to which an POP3 connection is required.
"HOST" is optional. If "HOST" is not given then it may
instead be passed as the "Host" option described below. If
neither is given then the "POP3_Hosts" specified in
"Net::Config" will be used.
"OPTIONS" are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value
pairs. Possible options are:
Host - POP3 host to connect to. It may be a single scalar, as
defined for the "PeerAddr" option in IO::Socket::INET, or a
reference to an array with hosts to try in turn. The "host"
method will return the value which was used to connect to the host.
ResvPort - If given then the socket for the "Net::POP3"
object will be bound to the local port given using "bind" when
the socket is created.
Timeout - Maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a response from the
POP3 server (default: 120)
Debug - Enable debugging information
METHODS¶
Unless otherwise stated all methods return either a
true or
false
value, with
true meaning that the operation was a success. When a
method states that it returns a value, failure will be returned as
undef or an empty list.
"Net::POP3" inherits from "Net::Cmd" so methods defined in
"Net::Cmd" may be used to send commands to the remote POP3 server in
addition to the methods documented here.
- auth ( USERNAME, PASSWORD )
- Attempt SASL authentication.
- user ( USER )
- Send the USER command.
- pass ( PASS )
- Send the PASS command. Returns the number of messages in the mailbox.
- login ( [ USER [, PASS ]] )
- Send both the USER and PASS commands. If "PASS" is not given the
"Net::POP3" uses "Net::Netrc" to lookup the password
using the host and username. If the username is not specified then the
current user name will be used.
Returns the number of messages in the mailbox. However if there are no
messages on the server the string "0E0" will be returned. This
is will give a true value in a boolean context, but zero in a numeric
context.
If there was an error authenticating the user then undef will be
returned.
- apop ( [ USER [, PASS ]] )
- Authenticate with the server identifying as "USER" with password
"PASS". Similar to "login", but the password is not
sent in clear text.
To use this method you must have the Digest::MD5 or the MD5 module
installed, otherwise this method will return undef.
- banner ()
- Return the sever's connection banner
- capa ()
- Return a reference to a hash of the capabilities of the server. APOP is
added as a pseudo capability. Note that I've been unable to find a list of
the standard capability values, and some appear to be multi-word and some
are not. We make an attempt at intelligently parsing them, but it may not
be correct.
- capabilities ()
- Just like capa, but only uses a cache from the last time we asked the
server, so as to avoid asking more than once.
- top ( MSGNUM [, NUMLINES ] )
- Get the header and the first "NUMLINES" of the body for the
message "MSGNUM". Returns a reference to an array which contains
the lines of text read from the server.
- list ( [ MSGNUM ] )
- If called with an argument the "list" returns the size of the
message in octets.
If called without arguments a reference to a hash is returned. The keys will
be the "MSGNUM"'s of all undeleted messages and the values will
be their size in octets.
- get ( MSGNUM [, FH ] )
- Get the message "MSGNUM" from the remote mailbox. If
"FH" is not given then get returns a reference to an array which
contains the lines of text read from the server. If "FH" is
given then the lines returned from the server are printed to the
filehandle "FH".
- getfh ( MSGNUM )
- As per get(), but returns a tied filehandle. Reading from this
filehandle returns the requested message. The filehandle will return EOF
at the end of the message and should not be reused.
- last ()
- Returns the highest "MSGNUM" of all the messages accessed.
- popstat ()
- Returns a list of two elements. These are the number of undeleted elements
and the size of the mbox in octets.
- ping ( USER )
- Returns a list of two elements. These are the number of new messages and
the total number of messages for "USER".
- uidl ( [ MSGNUM ] )
- Returns a unique identifier for "MSGNUM" if given. If
"MSGNUM" is not given "uidl" returns a reference to a
hash where the keys are the message numbers and the values are the unique
identifiers.
- delete ( MSGNUM )
- Mark message "MSGNUM" to be deleted from the remote mailbox. All
messages that are marked to be deleted will be removed from the remote
mailbox when the server connection closed.
- reset ()
- Reset the status of the remote POP3 server. This includes resetting the
status of all messages to not be deleted.
- quit ()
- Quit and close the connection to the remote POP3 server. Any messages
marked as deleted will be deleted from the remote mailbox.
NOTES¶
If a "Net::POP3" object goes out of scope before "quit"
method is called then the "reset" method will called before the
connection is closed. This means that any messages marked to be deleted will
not be.
SEE ALSO¶
Net::Netrc, Net::Cmd
AUTHOR¶
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 1995-2003 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program is free
software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
Perl itself.