Mail::Field
Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation (3)
Updated: 2021-01-27
Page Index
NAME
Mail::Field - base-class for manipulation of mail header fields
INHERITANCE
Mail::Field is extended by
Mail::Field::AddrList
Mail::Field::Date
Mail::Field::Generic
SYNOPSIS
use Mail::Field;
my $field = Mail::Field->new('Subject', 'some subject text');
my $field = Mail::Field->new(Subject => 'some subject text');
print $field->tag,": ",$field->stringify,"\n";
my $field = Mail::Field->subject('some subject text');
DESCRIPTION
"Mail::Field" creates and manipulates fields in
MIME headers, collected
within a Mail::Header object. Different field types have their
own sub-class (extension), defining additional useful accessors to the
field content.
People are invited to merge their implementation to special fields into
MailTools, to maintain a consistent set of packages and documentation.
METHODS
Constructors
Mail::Field (and it's sub-classes) define several methods which return
new objects. These can all be categorized as constructor.
- Mail::Field->combine($fields)
-
Take a LIST of "Mail::Field" objects (which should all be of the same
sub-class) and create a new object in that same class.
- Mail::Field->extract( $tag, $head [, $index ] )
-
Takes as arguments the tag name, a "Mail::Head" object
and optionally an index.
If the index argument is given then "extract" will retrieve the given tag
from the "Mail::Head" object and create a new "Mail::Field" based object.
undef will be returned in the field does not exist.
If the index argument is not given the result depends on the context
in which "extract" is called. If called in a scalar context the result
will be as if "extract" was called with an index value of zero. If called
in an array context then all tags will be retrieved and a list of
"Mail::Field" objects will be returned.
- Mail::Field->new( $tag [, STRING | %options] )
-
Create an object in the class which defines the field specified by
the $tag argument.
Fake constructors
- $obj->create(%options)
-
This constructor is used internally with preprocessed field information.
When called on an existing object, its original content will get
replaced.
- $obj->parse()
-
Parse a field line.
Accessors
- $obj->set(%options)
-
Change the settings (the content, but then smart) of this field.
- $obj->stringify()
-
Returns the field as a string.
- $obj->tag()
-
- Mail::Field->tag()
-
Return the tag (in the correct case) for this item. Well, actually any
casing is OK, because the field tags are treated case-insensitive; however
people have some preferences.
Smart accessors
- $obj->text( [STRING] )
-
Without arguments, the field is returned as stringify() does. Otherwise,
the STRING is parsed with parse() to replace the object's content.
It is more clear to call either stringify() or parse() directly, because
this method does not add additional processing.
DETAILS
SUB-CLASS PACKAGE NAMES
All sub-classes should be called Mail::Field::
name where
name is
derived from the tag using these rules.
- •
-
Consider a tag as being made up of elements separated by '-'
- •
-
Convert all characters to lowercase except the first in each element, which
should be uppercase.
- •
-
name is then created from these elements by using the first
N characters from each element.
- •
-
N is calculated by using the formula :-
int((7 + #elements) / #elements)
- •
-
name is then limited to a maximum of 8 characters, keeping the first 8
characters.
For an example of this take a look at the definition of the
"_header_pkg_name()" subroutine in "Mail::Field"
DIAGNOSTICS
- Error: Undefined subroutine <method> called
-
Mail::Field objects use autoloading to compile new functionality.
Apparently, the method called is not implemented for the specific
class of the field object.
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 by Gisle Aas <aas@oslonett.no>.
Mail::Field::AddrList by Peter Orbaek <poe@cit.dk>.
Mail::Mailer and Mail::Send 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