Constructors

$obj->dup()

Duplicate the message as a whole. Both header and body will be deep-copied: a new Mail::Internet object is returned.

$obj->extract(\@lines)

Extract header and body from an ARRAY of message lines. Requires an object already created with new(), which contents will get overwritten.

$obj->new( [$arg], [%options] )

Mail::Internet->new( [$arg], [%options] )

$arg is optional and may be either a file descriptor (reference to a GLOB) or a reference to an array. If given the new object will be initialized with headers and body either from the array of read from the file descriptor.

The Mail::Header::new() %options "Modify", "MailFrom" and "FoldLength" may also be given.

-Option--Default
 Body    []
 Header  undef

$obj->read($fh)

Read a message from the $fh into an already existing message object. Better use new() with the $fh as first argument.

Accessors

$obj->body( [$body] )

Returns the body of the message. This is a reference to an array. Each entry in the array represents a single line in the message.

If $body is given, it can be a reference to an array or an array, then the body will be replaced. If a reference is passed, it is used directly and not copied, so any subsequent changes to the array will change the contents of the body.

$obj->head()

Returns the "Mail::Header" object which holds the headers for the current message

Processing the message as a whole

$obj->as_mbox_string( [$already_escaped] )

Returns the message as a string in mbox format. $already_escaped, if given and true, indicates that escape_from() has already been called on this object.

$obj->as_string()

Returns the message as a single string.

$obj->print( [$fh] )

Print the header, body or whole message to file descriptor $fh. $fd should be a reference to a GLOB. If $fh is not given the output will be sent to STDOUT.

example:

$mail->print( \*STDOUT );  # Print message to STDOUT

$obj->print_body( [$fh] )

Print only the body to the $fh (default STDOUT).

$obj->print_header( [$fh] )

Print only the header to the $fh (default STDOUT).

Processing the header

Most of these methods are simply wrappers around methods provided by Mail::Header.

$obj->add(PAIRS)

The PAIRS are field-name and field-content. For each PAIR, Mail::Header::add() is called. All fields are added after existing fields. The last addition is returned.

$obj->combine( $tag, [$with] )

See Mail::Header::combine().

$obj->delete( $tag, [$tags] )

Delete all fields with the name $tag. Mail::Header::delete() is doing the work.

$obj->fold( [$length] )

See Mail::Header::fold().

$obj->fold_length( [$tag], [$length] )

See Mail::Header::fold_length().

$obj->get( $tag, [$tags] )

In LIST context, all fields with the name $tag are returned. In SCALAR context, only the first field which matches the earliest $tag is returned. Mail::Header::get() is called to collect the data.

$obj->header(\@lines)

See Mail::Header::header().

$obj->replace(PAIRS)

The PAIRS are field-name and field-content. For each PAIR, Mail::Header::replace() is called with index 0. If a $field is already in the header, it will be removed first. Do not specified the same field-name twice.

Processing the body

$obj->remove_sig( [$nlines] )

Attempts to remove a user's signature from the body of a message. It does this by looking for a line equal to '-- ' within the last $nlines of the message. If found then that line and all lines after it will be removed. If $nlines is not given a default value of 10 will be used. This would be of most use in auto-reply scripts.

$obj->sign(%options)

Add your signature to the body. remove_sig() will strip existing signatures first.

-Option   --Default
 File       undef
 Signature  []

$obj->tidy_body()

Removes all leading and trailing lines from the body that only contain white spaces.

High-level functionality

$obj->escape_from()

It can cause problems with some applications if a message contains a line starting with `From ', in particular when attempting to split a folder. This method inserts a leading "`"'> on any line that matches the regular expression "/^"*From/>

$obj->nntppost( [%options] )

Post an article via NNTP. Requires Net::NNTP to be installed.

-Option--Default
 Debug   <false>
 Host    <required>
 Port    119

$obj->reply(%options)

Create a new object with header initialised for a reply to the current object. And the body will be a copy of the current message indented.

The ".mailhdr" file in your home directory (if exists) will be read first, to provide defaults.

-Option  --Default
 Exclude   []
 Indent    '>'
 Keep      []
 ReplyAll  false

$obj->send( [$type, [$args...]] )

Send a Mail::Internet message using Mail::Mailer. $type and $args are passed on to Mail::Mailer::new().

$obj->smtpsend( [%options] )

Send a Mail::Internet message using direct SMTP to the given ADDRESSES, each can be either a string or a reference to a list of email addresses. If none of "To", <Cc> or "Bcc" are given then the addresses are extracted from the message being sent.

The return value will be a list of email addresses that the message was sent to. If the message was not sent the list will be empty.

Requires Net::SMTP and Net::Domain to be installed.

-Option  --Default
 Bcc       undef
 Cc        undef
 Debug     <false>
 Hello     localhost.localdomain
 Host      $ENV{SMTPHOSTS}
 MailFrom  Mail::Util::mailaddress()
 Port      25
 To        undef

$obj->unescape_from(())

Remove the escaping added by escape_from().