Mail::Cap(3)          User Contributed Perl Documentation         Mail::Cap(3)


NAME
       Mail::Cap - understand mailcap files

SYNOPSIS
        my $mc   = Mail::Cap->new;

        my $desc = $mc->description('image/gif');
        print "GIF desc: $desc\n";

        my $cmd  = $mc->viewCmd('text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1', 'file.txt');

DESCRIPTION
       Parse mailcap files as specified in "RFC 1524 --A User Agent
       Configuration Mechanism For Multimedia Mail Format Information>.  In
       the description below $type refers to the MIME type as specified in the
       "Content-Type" header of mail or HTTP messages.  Examples of types are:

         image/gif
         text/html
         text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

       You could also take a look at the File::MimeInfo distribution, which
       are accessing tables which are used by many applications on a system,
       and therefore have succeeded the mail-cap specifications on modern
       (UNIX) systems.

METHODS
   Constructors
       Mail::Cap->new(%options)
           Create and initialize a new Mail::Cap object.  If you give it an
           argument it will try to parse the specified file.  Without any
           arguments it will search for the mailcap file using the standard
           mailcap path, or the MAILCAPS environment variable if it is
           defined.

            -Option  --Default
             filename  undef
             take      'FIRST'

           filename => FILENAME
             Add the specified file to the list to standard locations.  This
             file is tried first.

           take => 'ALL'|'FIRST'
             Include all mailcap files you can find.  By default, only the
             first file is parsed, however the RFC tells us to include ALL.
             To maintain backwards compatibility, the default only takes the
             FIRST.

           example:

             $mcap = new Mail::Cap;
             $mcap = new Mail::Cap "/mydir/mailcap";
             $mcap = new Mail::Cap filename => "/mydir/mailcap";
             $mcap = new Mail::Cap take => 'ALL';
             $mcap = Mail::Cap->new(take => 'ALL');

   Run commands
       These methods invoke a suitable program presenting or manipulating the
       media object in the specified file.  They all return 1 if a command was
       found, and 0 otherwise.  You might test $? for the outcome of the
       command.

       $obj->compose($type, $file)
       $obj->edit($type, $file)
       $obj->print($type, $file)
       $obj->view($type, $file)

   Command creator
       These methods return a string that is suitable for feeding to system()
       in order to invoke a suitable program presenting or manipulating the
       media object in the specified file.  It will return "undef" if no
       suitable specification exists.

       $obj->composeCmd($type, $file)
       $obj->editCmd($type, $file)
       $obj->printCmd($type, $file)
       $obj->viewCmd($type, $file)

   Look-up definitions
       Methods return the corresponding mailcap field for the type.

       $obj->description($type)
       $obj->field($type, $field)
           Returns the specified field for the type.  Returns undef if no
           specification exists.

       $obj->nametemplate($type)
       $obj->textualnewlines($type)
       $obj->x11_bitmap($type)

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

perl v5.38.0                      2023-07-25                      Mail::Cap(3)