Mail::Message::Field::Unstructured(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Mail::Message::Field::Unstructured(3)

Mail::Message::Field::Unstructured - smart unstructured field

Mail::Message::Field::Unstructured
  is a Mail::Message::Field::Full
  is a Mail::Message::Field
  is a Mail::Reporter

my $f = Mail::Message::Field::Unstructured->new('Comments', 'hi!');

Unstructured fields do contain information which is not restricted in any way. RFC2822 defines some unstructured fields, but by default all unknown fields are unstructured as well. Things like attributes and comments have no meaning for unstructured fields, but encoding does.

Extends "DESCRIPTION" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

Extends "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field
Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field
Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field
Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field
Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Message::Field

Extends "METHODS" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

Extends "Constructors" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->clone()
Inherited, see "Constructors" in Mail::Message::Field
$class->from($field, %options)
Inherited, see "Constructors" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$class->new($data)
When the $data is specified as single line, the content part is considered to be correcly (character) encoded and escaped. Typically, it is a line as read from file. The folding of the line is kept as is.

In case more than one argument is provided, the second is considered the BODY. Attributes and other special things are not defined for unstructured fields, and therefore not valid options. The BODY can be a single string, a single OBJECT, or an array of OBJECTS. The objects are stringified (into a comma separated list). Each BODY element is interpreted with the specified encoding.

When the BODY is empty, the construction of the object fails: "undef" is returned. Improves base, see "METHODS" in Mail::Message::Field::Full

-Option  --Defined in                --Default
 charset   Mail::Message::Field::Full  undef
 encoding  Mail::Message::Field::Full  'q'
 force     Mail::Message::Field::Full  false
 language  Mail::Message::Field::Full  undef

» example:

my $s = Mail::Message::Field::Unstructured->new('Comment', 'Hi!');
# Use autodetect
my $s = Mail::Message::Field::Full->new('Comment', 'Hi!');
my $s = Mail::Message::Field::Full->new('Comment: Hi!');

Extends "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->Name()
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->body()
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->folded()
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->foldedBody( [$body] )
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->name()
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->unfoldedBody( [$body, [$wrap]] )
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->wellformedName( [STRING] )
Inherited, see "Attributes" in Mail::Message::Field

Extends "The field" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$any->isStructured( [$name] )
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->length()
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->nrLines()
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->print( [$fh] )
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->size()
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->string( [$wrap] )
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->toDisclose()
Inherited, see "The field" in Mail::Message::Field

Extends "Access to the body" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->decodedBody(%options)
Inherited, see "Access to the body" in Mail::Message::Field::Full

Extends "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->addresses()
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->attribute( $name, [$value] )
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->attributes()
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->beautify()
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$obj->comment( [STRING] )
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$any->createComment(STRING, %options)
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$any->createPhrase(STRING, %options)
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$any->dateToTimestamp(STRING)
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$any->stripCFWS( [STRING] )
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->study()
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$any->toDate( [$time] )
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->toInt()
Inherited, see "Access to the content" in Mail::Message::Field

Extends "Internals" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$any->decode(STRING, %options)
Inherited, see "Internals" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$obj->encode(STRING, %options)
Inherited, see "Internals" in Mail::Message::Field::Full

Extends "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->consume( $line | <$name,<$body|$objects>> )
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field
$any->consumeComment(STRING)
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$obj->consumeDotAtom(STRING)
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$any->consumePhrase(STRING)
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$obj->defaultWrapLength( [$length] )
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field
$any->fold( $name, $body, [$maxchars] )
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->parse(STRING)
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$obj->produceBody()
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field::Full
$obj->setWrapLength( [$length] )
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->stringifyData(STRING|ARRAY|$objects)
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field
$obj->unfold(STRING)
Inherited, see "Parsing" in Mail::Message::Field

Extends "Error handling" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->AUTOLOAD()
Inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter
$obj->notImplemented()
Inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter

Extends "Cleanup" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

$obj->DESTROY()
Inherited, see "Cleanup" in Mail::Reporter

Extends "DETAILS" in Mail::Message::Field::Full.

Cast by new()
Fatal error: the specific $package (or one of its superclasses) does not implement this method where it should. This message means that some other related classes do implement this method however the class at hand does not. Probably you should investigate this and probably inform the author of the package. Cast by notImplemented()
The numeric value of a field is requested (for instance the "Lines" or "Content-Length" fields should be numerical), however the data contains weird characters. Cast by toInt()
It is not specified in the RFCs how long a field name can be, but at least it should be a few characters shorter than the line wrap. Cast by fold()
The field is created with an utf8 string which only contains data from the specified character set. However, that character set can never be a valid name because it contains characters which are not permitted. Cast by encode()
A new field is being created which does contain characters not permitted by the RFCs. Using this field in messages may break other e-mail clients or transfer agents, and therefore mutulate or extinguish your message. Cast by consume()
The field is created with data which is specified to be in a certain language, however, the name of the language cannot be valid: it contains characters which are not permitted by the RFCs. Cast by encode()
The RFCs only permit base64 ("b " or "B ") or quoted-printable ("q" or "Q") encoding. Other than these four options are illegal. Cast by encode()
Cast by new()

This module is part of Mail-Message version 4.05, built on April 10, 2026. Website: http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/

For contributors see file ChangeLog.

This software is copyright (c) 2001-2026 by Mark Overmeer.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

2026-04-11 perl v5.42.2