Mail::Message::Construct::Read

Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation (3)
Updated: 2021-01-27
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NAME

Mail::Message::Construct::Read - read a Mail::Message from a file handle

SYNOPSIS

 my $msg1 = Mail::Message->read(\*STDIN);
 my $msg2 = Mail::Message->read(\@lines);

DESCRIPTION

When complex methods are called on a "Mail::Message" object, this package is autoloaded to support the reading of messages directly from any file handle.

METHODS

Constructing a message

Mail::Message->read($fh|STRING|SCALAR|ARRAY, %options)

Read a message from a $fh, STRING, SCALAR, or a reference to an ARRAY of lines. Most %options are passed to the new() of the message which is created, but a few extra are defined.

Please have a look at build() and buildFromBody() before thinking about this "read" method. Use this "read" only when you have a file-handle like STDIN to parse from, or some external source of message lines. When you already have a separate set of head and body lines, then "read" is certainly not your best choice.

Some people use this method in a procmail script: the message arrives at stdin, so we only have a filehandle. In this case, you are stuck with this method. The message is preceded by a line which can be used as message separator in mbox folders. See the example how to handle that one.

This method will remove "Status" and "X-Status" fields when they appear in the source, to avoid the risk that these fields accidentally interfere with your internal administration, which may have security implications.

 -Option             --Default
  body_type            undef
  strip_status_fields  <true>

body_type => CLASS: Force a body type (any specific implementation of a Mail::Message::Body) to be used to store the message content. When the body is a multipart or nested, this will be overruled.
strip_status_fields => BOOLEAN: Remove the "Status" and "X-Status" fields from the message after reading, to lower the risk that received messages from external sources interfere with your internal administration. If you want fields not to be stripped (you would like to disable the stripping) you probably process folders yourself, which is a Bad Thing!

example:

 my $msg1 = Mail::Message->read(\*STDIN);
 my $msg2 = Mail::Message->read(\@lines, log => 'PROGRESS');
 $folder->addMessages($msg1, $msg2);

 my $msg3 = Mail::Message->read(<<MSG);
 Subject: hello world
 To: you@example.com
                      # warning: empty line required !!!
 Hi, greetings!
 MSG

 # promail example
 my $fromline = <STDIN>;
 my $msg      = Mail::Message->read(\*STDIN);
 my $coerced  = $mboxfolder->addMessage($msg);
 $coerced->fromLine($fromline);

LICENSE

Copyrights 2001-2020 by [Mark Overmeer <markov@cpan.org>]. For other contributors see ChangeLog.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/