Parsing a Unix Mailbox

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

I need to extract the header and body information from a Unix mbox one message at a time, do some edit checks on the header & body, return a message to the sender if errors are detected in the body, and delete the processed messages from the mailbox. I'm trying to use the Mail::Box module to accomplish this task; however being new to Perl using this module is over my head. I saw the module Mail-Mbox Parser on CPAN. Will this module accomplish what I need to do? I need some guidance! Should I try using one of the above mentioned modules or try writing a script to read the mbox head-on? Any guidance you can provide will be appreciated. Thanks. bod

Comment on Parsing a Unix Mailbox

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Re: Parsing a Unix Mailbox by jwest (Friar) on Jul 18, 2002 at 16:22 UTC
I'd look into avoiding reading the mbox file to begin with. With a properly defined alias or .forward file, you could use a script using Mail::Procmail to intercept the email as it's being delivered. By doing so, you've eliminated all the headaches that go with handling the mbox file yourself. In addition, Mail::Procmail's pm_init method returns a Mail::Internet object, which will allow for easy manipulation of headers and bodies (and re-sending the email, as necessary). Of course, if you're not using any of the more advanced features of Mail::Procmail, you could eliminate your use of the module by creating your Mail::Internet object directly: `my $mail = Mail::Internet->new(\*STDIN);` [download] Hope this helps! --jwest -><- -><- -><- -><- -><- All things are Perfect To every last Flaw And bound in accord With Eris's Law - HBT; The Book of Advice, 1:7	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Parsing a Unix Mailbox by domm (Chaplain) on Jul 19, 2002 at 07:47 UTC
I use Mail::Audit for filtering/processing of incoming mail. But I cannot compare it with Mail::Procmail, as I never used it.. There is an article about Mail::Audit on perl.com: http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/07/17/mailfiltering.html `-- #!/usr/bin/perl for(ref bless{},just'another'perl'hacker){s-:+-$"-g&&print$_.$/}` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Parsing a Unix Mailbox by ides (Deacon) on Jul 18, 2002 at 16:16 UTC
Yes it looks like Mail::MboxParser will do the trick for you. What you are going to need to do is use Mail::MboxParser::Mail's header function to return you a hash of all the header variables and Mail::MboxParser::Mail::Body to work with the body. You are probably going to have to write your own code to actually remove it from the file however, but Mail::MboxParser will make finding and checking each message much easier. ----------------------------------- Frank Wiles <frank@wiles.org> http://frank.wiles.org	[reply]