Greetings fellow monks,

I'm trying to use Redemption with ActivePerl by using the Win32::OLE module.

While I'm being able to send emails directly, I really lost about how to setup an extra RFC822 header. I believe that I'm missing something simple, probably a little concept that I'm not understanding well.

I can send emails with extra header easily by using VBA with this code below:

Sub createEmail()
    
    Dim olApp As Outlook.Application
    Set olApp = New Outlook.Application
    
    Dim olMail As MailItem
    Set olMail = Outlook.CreateItem(olMailItem)
    
    With olMail
        .To = "glasswalk3r@yahoo.com.br"
        .Subject = "Testing a customized header"
        .BodyFormat = olFormatPlain
        .body = "Hello there!" & vbCrLf _
            & "This is a VBA POC (with Redemption!) generated email an
+d should have a " _
            & "nice customized header (X-Reported-Via)." & vbCrLf _
            & "My best regards," & vbCrLf & "Alceu"
        .Importance = olImportanceHigh
        .ReadReceiptRequested = True
    End With
    
    Dim sItem As Object
    
    Set sItem = CreateObject("Redemption.SafeMailItem")
    sItem.item = olMail
    Tag = sItem.GetIDsFromNames("{00020386-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
+}", "X-Reported-Via")
    Tag = Tag Or &H1E 'the type is PT_STRING8
    
    With sItem
        .Fields(Tag) = "Test::Reporter Test::Reporter::Transport::Outl
+ook"
        .Subject = sItem.Subject  'to trick Outlook into thinking that
+ something has changed
        .Send
    End With
    
    Set olMail = Nothing

End Sub
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And here is the related Perl (omitted the part that works fine) code:

my $tag = Win32::OLE::Variant->new( VT_R8, $self->{message}->GetIDsFro
+mNames( '{00020386-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}', $name ));

# converting the numeric value to binary and back to decimal
my $pt_string8 = unpack( "B*", pack( "N", 0x0000001E ) );
my $tag_bin    = unpack( "B*", pack( "N", $tag->Value() ) );
my $test = $tag_bin | $pt_string8;

$self->{message}->Fields->Put( oct("0b$test"),  $value);
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When running this code I got the following message:

Can't call method "Put" on an undefined value

The concept that I'm missing is related of how to deal with Fields: documentation of Redemption says that Fields is an array, but even in VBA I cannot see it's content with the debugger and cannot loop over it. I can access the value only if I supply the "tag" as the index of it.

In Perl, I cannot dump the value of Fields by using the debugger too (all I got is the nice "Matrix" effect with it).

In truth, I don't know how to setup values for Fields because I don't if for Win32::OLE it is a property, a method or a cheeseburger. I don't know if I should call a method of it, setup a index like an ordinary array, create an array and associate it's value with it. I tried all these things without success.

I tried this:

$self->{message}->Fields( oct("0b$test"),  $value);
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and got no error (but no extra header too!).

From Perl side, it's necessary to convert values from/to Perl and COM objects. Win32::OLE does almost everything and when it's not enough, Win32::OLE::Variant module does it. I tried creating an ordinary array, associating it's "tag" with the value I want for the extra header, but Perl just dies:

my $array = Win32::OLE::Variant->new( VT_BSTR | VT_ARRAY, oct("0b$test
+") );
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Win32::OLE(0.1709): Win32::OLE::Variant->new() could not allocate SafeArray

Maybe if I got more details about how Fields was implemented, then I could look for how to integrate Perl code with it. Any advice about that should help.

I'm using ActivePerl 5.10.0 in a Windows XP SP3 with MS Outlook 2003 SP3

Updated:

Fields is a indexed property and should be set with the Win32:OLE method LetProperty method.

That said, the following code works fine:

    use Win32::OLE::Variant;

    my $tag = Win32::OLE::Variant->new( VT_R8,
        $self->{message}
          ->GetIDsFromNames( '{00020386-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}',
+ $name )
    );

# When using GetIDsFromNames you must OR the result you get back with 
+the type of property tag,
# in this case PT_STRING8.
# PT_STRING8 == 0x0000001E

    # in binary
    my $pt_string8 = unpack( "B*", pack( "N", 0x0000001E ) );
    my $tag_bin    = unpack( "B*", pack( "N", $tag->Value() ) );

    my $test = $tag_bin | $pt_string8;
    $test = oct("0b$test");

    #$self->{message}->{Fields} = $array->Value();
    #$self->{message}->{Fields}->[$test] = $value;

    $self->{message}->LetProperty('Fields', $test, $value);
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