Hi,

Well done, useful script that works ;)

...However ;)

• $' is not advised, instead consider the form

  if ($curline =~ /^Subject: (.*)$/){
      $curmsg{Subject} = $1;
  [download]

  Note: That this also removes the need for the chomp statement in readmail, you should really do all relevant processing in one place.
• I prefer to use lexically scoped variables than $_ in sub-routines and loops, it means that I can read the program naturally when I come back to it in 6 months.eg:

  sub checkdir {
      my $directory = shift;
      my $is_directory=(( -e $directory ) && ( -d $directory))?0:1;
      $return $is_directory;
  }
  [download]

  OR

  sub printhash {
      my $hash = shift;
      for my $key (keys %{$hash}) {
          print "$key : $hash->{$key}\n";
      }
  }
  [download]

• In the checkdir example above I also modified it so that there was only one exit point. This makes life easier when it comes to debugging.
• In the printhash example above I illustrated the use of the keys keyword which returns the keys of a hash as a list
• Also in the printhash routine you will see that I changed the parameter from a hash to a hash reference, as a general rule this makes life easier since you can pass multiple hashes, arrays and scalars without one swallowing the others.
• Unlikely in this context, but imagine a file called >0A1234567.msg, you should use the three param form of open like so open (my $file_handle , '<', "$filename");
• When you parse through the mail file you should probably terminate the loop when you finish reading the headers ie last if $curline=~/^$/;
• and finally I prefer the .= operator rather than$var = $var . "/".

Believe me when I say my first Perl program had all these issues and more, this is a very good first program.

Updated as per hexcoder's advice below

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