http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=1217806

Arik123 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Consider the following code:

use Net::IMAP::Simple::SSL;
use Email::MIME;

my $imap = Net::IMAP::Simple::SSL -> new ('imap.gmail.com');
$imap -> login ("LOGIN\@gmail.com" => 'PASS');
my @unseen = reverse sort $imap->search_unseen;
for my $i (@unseen) {
  my $msg = join '', @{$imap->get($i)};
  unless (fork) {
    if (&process (Email::MIME->new (\$msg)) eq "notouch") {
      $imap->unsee ($i);
      exit;
    }
  }
}

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&process() should decide whether or not to mark the message as \Seen. however, it doesn't work. Whatever &process() returns, the message is marked as \Seen. I think it has to do with the exit() the child performes - maybe that forces the message to be \Seen.

Any solution? thanks!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: IMAP: mark message as unseen
by Corion (Patriarch) on Jul 03, 2018 at 11:02 UTC

    I think the \Seen flag is set automatically by the IMAP server whenever any client retrieves a message body. At least in my (automated) IMAP clients, I have resorted to programmatically remove the \Seen flag on mails that I retrieve. Looking at Mail::IMAPClient, there is mention of the Peek flag, which should let the IMAP server know that the mail should remain unread. I haven't tried this, but it could work like this:

    $imap->Peek(1); # don't mark mails as \Seen automatically

my @unseen = reverse sort $imap->search_unseen;
for my $i (@unseen) {
  my $msg = join '', @{$imap->get($i)};
  unless (fork) {
    if (&process (Email::MIME->new (\$msg)) eq "notouch") {
      $imap->unsee ($i);
      exit;
    }
  }
}

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      Okay, the PEEK things works... temporarily (it isn't implemented in Net::IMAP::Simple::SSL, but I did it manually). After fetching the messages using the PEEK thing, the web interface shows that the messages are still unread. However, if I wait a few moments without any action, and then re-load the web interface, the messages are marked as Seen.

      Any idea what is going on? Thanks a lot!

[reply]

        Sorry, it was probably my mistake.

        However, the PEEK method doesn't yet work perfectly (I'm trying to figure out why). Is there any alternative?

[reply]
Re: IMAP: mark message as unseen
by Arik123 (Beadle) on Jul 13, 2018 at 06:49 UTC

    Okay, I seem to have solved this. The problem was with the fork(). Apparently the $imap isn't carried to the child process as it should have. I now implement it all in one thread, and it seems to work perfectly.

[reply]

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