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Editing File: /usr/share/perl5/Mail/Internet.pod

=encoding utf8

=head1 NAME

Mail::Internet - manipulate email messages

=head1 SYNOPSIS

use Mail::Internet;
  my $msg = Mail::Internet->new(\*STDIN);

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This package implements reading, creating, manipulating, and writing email
messages.  Sometimes, the implementation tries to be too smart, but in
the general case it works as expected.

If you start writing a B<new application>, you should use the L<Mail::Box>
distribution, which has more features and handles messages much better
according to the RFCs.  See L<http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/>.
You may also chose L<MIME::Entity>, to get at least some multipart
support in your application.

=head1 METHODS

=head2 Constructors

=over 4

=item $obj-E<gt>B<dup>()

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

=item $obj-E<gt>B<extract>(\@lines)

Extract header and body from an ARRAY of message lines.  Requires an
object already created with L<new()|Mail::Internet/"Constructors">, which contents will get overwritten.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<new>( [$arg], [%options] )

=item Mail::Internet-E<gt>B<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 L<Mail::Header::new()|Mail::Header/"Constructors"> %options C<Modify>, C<MailFrom> and C<FoldLength>
may also be given.

-Option--Default
  Body    []
  Header  undef

=over 2

=item Body => ARRAY-of-LINES

The value of this option should be a reference to an array which contains
the lines for the body of the message. Each line should be terminated with
C<\n> (LF). If Body is given then C<Mail::Internet> will not attempt to
read the body from C<$arg> (even if it is specified).

=item Header => Mail::Header

The value of this option should be a L<Mail::Header|Mail::Header> object. If given then
C<Mail::Internet> will not attempt to read a mail header from C<$arg>, if
it was specified.

=back

=item $obj-E<gt>B<read>($fh)

Read a message from the $fh into an already existing message
object.  Better use L<new()|Mail::Internet/"Constructors"> with the $fh as first argument.

=back

=head2 Accessors

=over 4

=item $obj-E<gt>B<body>( [$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 I<$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.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<head>()

Returns the C<Mail::Header> object which holds the headers for the current
message

=back

=head2 Processing the message as a whole

=over 4

=item $obj-E<gt>B<as_mbox_string>( [$already_escaped] )

Returns the message as a string in mbox format.  C<$already_escaped>, if
given and true, indicates that L<escape_from()|Mail::Internet/"High-level functionality"> has already been called on
this object.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<as_string>()

Returns the message as a single string.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<print>( [$fh] )

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

example:

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

=item $obj-E<gt>B<print_body>( [$fh] )

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

=item $obj-E<gt>B<print_header>( [$fh] )

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

=back

=head2 Processing the header

Most of these methods are simply wrappers around methods provided
by L<Mail::Header|Mail::Header>.

=over 4

=item $obj-E<gt>B<add>(PAIRS)

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

=item $obj-E<gt>B<combine>( $tag, [$with] )

See L<Mail::Header::combine()|Mail::Header/"Processing">.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<delete>( $tag, [$tags] )

Delete all fields with the name $tag.  L<Mail::Header::delete()|Mail::Header/"Processing"> is doing the
work.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<fold>( [$length] )

See L<Mail::Header::fold()|Mail::Header/"Processing">.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<fold_length>( [$tag], [$length] )

See L<Mail::Header::fold_length()|Mail::Header/"Accessors">.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<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.
L<Mail::Header::get()|Mail::Header/"Processing"> is called to collect the data.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<header>(\@lines)

See L<Mail::Header::header()|Mail::Header/""Fake" constructors">.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<replace>(PAIRS)

The PAIRS are field-name and field-content.  For each PAIR,
L<Mail::Header::replace()|Mail::Header/"Processing"> 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.

=back

=head2 Processing the body

=over 4

=item $obj-E<gt>B<remove_sig>( [$nlines] )

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

=item $obj-E<gt>B<sign>(%options)

Add your signature to the body.  L<remove_sig()|Mail::Internet/"Processing the body"> will strip existing
signatures first.

-Option   --Default
  File       undef
  Signature  []

=over 2

=item File => FILEHANDLE

Take from the FILEHANDLE all lines starting from the first C<< -- >>.

=item Signature => STRING|ARRAY-of-LINES

=back

=item $obj-E<gt>B<tidy_body>()

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

=back

=head2 High-level functionality

=over 4

=item $obj-E<gt>B<escape_from>()

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

=item $obj-E<gt>B<nntppost>( [%options] )

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

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

=over 2

=item Debug => BOOLEAN

Debug value to pass to Net::NNTP, see L<Net::NNTP>

=item Host => HOSTNAME|Net::NNTP object

Name of NNTP server to connect to, or a Net::NNTP object to use.

=item Port => INTEGER

Port number to connect to on remote host

=back

=item $obj-E<gt>B<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 C<.mailhdr> file in your home directory (if exists) will be read
first, to provide defaults.

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

=over 2

=item Exclude => ARRAY-of-FIELDS

Remove the listed FIELDS from the produced message.

=item Indent => STRING

Use as indentation string.  The string may contain C<%%> to get a single C<%>,
C<%f> to get the first from name, C<%F> is the first character of C<%f>,
C<%l> is the last name, C<%L> its first character, C<%n> the whole from
string, and C<%I> the first character of each of the names in the from string.

=item Keep => ARRAY-of-FIELDS

Copy the listed FIELDS from the original message.

=item ReplyAll => BOOLEAN

Automatically include all To and Cc addresses of the original mail,
excluding those mentioned in the Bcc list.

=back

=item $obj-E<gt>B<send>( [$type, [$args...]] )

Send a Mail::Internet message using L<Mail::Mailer|Mail::Mailer>.  $type and $args are
passed on to L<Mail::Mailer::new()|Mail::Mailer/"Constructors">.

=item $obj-E<gt>B<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 C<To>, <Cc> or C<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

=over 2

=item Bcc => ADDRESSES

=item Cc => ADDRESSES

=item Debug => BOOLEAN

Debug value to pass to Net::SMTP, see <Net::SMTP>

=item Hello => STRING

Send a HELO (or EHLO) command to the server with the given name.

=item Host => HOSTNAME

Name of the SMTP server to connect to, or a Net::SMTP object to use

If C<Host> is not given then the SMTP host is found by attempting
connections first to hosts specified in C<$ENV{SMTPHOSTS}>, a colon
separated list, then C<mailhost> and C<localhost>.

=item MailFrom => ADDRESS

The e-mail address which is used as sender.  By default,
L<Mail::Util::mailaddress()|Mail::Util/"FUNCTIONS"> provides the address of the sender.

=item Port => INTEGER

Port number to connect to on remote host

=item To => ADDRESSES

=back

=item $obj-E<gt>B<unescape_from>(())

Remove the escaping added by L<escape_from()|Mail::Internet/"High-level functionality">.

=back

=head1 SEE ALSO

This module is part of the MailTools distribution,
F<http://perl.overmeer.net/mailtools/>.

=head1 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 E<lt>aas@oslonett.noE<gt>.
Mail::Field::AddrList by Peter Orbaek E<lt>poe@cit.dkE<gt>.
Mail::Mailer and Mail::Send by Tim Bunce E<lt>Tim.Bunce@ig.co.ukE<gt>.
For other contributors see ChangeLog.

=head1 LICENSE

Copyrights 1995-2000 Graham Barr E<lt>gbarr@pobox.comE<gt> and
2001-2017 Mark Overmeer E<lt>perl@overmeer.netE<gt>.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
See F<http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>

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