Hello, I (Perl newbie) tried to write a script that checks the number of messages on my POP3 accounts. This is my code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use Net::POP3;
use Term::ReadKey;

# Read the mail accounts from a file called addresses
# which resides in the script's directory
open ADDRESSES, "./addresses";
# read all the lines
my @addys = <ADDRESSES>;
# close address file
close ADDRESSES;

# do the following for every address
foreach my $address (@addys)
{
        # chomp newlines
        chomp $address;

        # split address into username and hostname
        (my $user, my $host) = split /\s/, $address;

        # let the user enter his password
        print "Please enter the password for  $user\@$host\:";
        ReadMode( "noecho" );
        my $pass = ReadLine();
        ReadMode( "normal" );
        print "\n";

        # connect to host
        my $pop = Net::POP3->new( $host ) or do { 
                print "Could not initialize connection.\n";
                next;   
                };      

        print "Connected to $host.\n";

        # send USER
        $pop->user( $user ) or do {
                print "Could not send user name.\n";
                next;
                };

        print "Sent username $user.\n";

        # send pass, receive number of messages
        my @a = $pop->pass( $pass ) or do {
                print "Could not send password.\n";
                next;
                };

        # print number of msg or complain about failed login
        if (defined $a[0])
        {
                $pop->quit();
                print "Messages: $a[0]\n";
        }
        else
        {
                print "Login failed.\n";
        }
}
[download]

The script accesses a file called "addresses" where login and POP3 server are stored in the following way: <login> <pop3 server>\n <login> <pop3 server>\n etc. Generally the script does its work as long as login to the server works too. If login fails I get an error message: Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq (==) at /usr/share/perl/5.8.2/Net/POP3.pm line 302, <STDIN> line 1 (#1) The line itself is:

 sub _QUIT { shift->command('QUIT')->response() == CMD_OK }
[download]

Seems like the problem is that the server after getting the wrong password closes the connection and this way $pop gets undefined? Can anyone please show me a workaround? Thank you

20031224 Edit by BazB: Changed title from 'Net::POP3'

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.