Fellow monks: I've been hammering away on a script to parse HTML formatted messages retreived from email via Net::IMAP::Simple and throws them at syslog via Sys::Syslog. As part of maintaining some sense of state, i copy processed messages to a "processed" folder for later review, and delete them from the INBOX. As i understand it, either an explicit $server->expunge_mailbox('INBOX') or a $server->quit() should clear the messages from the Inbox. My issue is that they stick around, and are processed on the next execution of the script.

Since $server->quit is also supposed to expunge (according to the docs), I'm pretty sure it's either an issue with the module or with MS-Exchange server. Have any of you experienced anything similar and/or fixed the issue?

UPDATE #1: Added code

UPDATE #2: broken module

UPDATE #3: Converted to Mail::IMAPClient and all is well!!

It appears that the module neither works completely as advertised, nor does it properly check it's own return codes. $server->quit calls $server->expunge_mailbox before disconnect, so $server->quit should never complete successfully without $server->expunge_mailbox also completing successfully...

I guess i get to go re-code, based (hopefully) on Mail::IMAPClient

---

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Env; ## This allows the script to read environment variables
use lib $MY_PERL;  ## my custom site_perl directory
use Net::IMAP::Simple;
use Email::Simple;
use Sys::Syslog;

my $user = $IMAP_USER;
my $password = $IMAP_PASS;
my $mailhost = $IMAP_HOST;

###########################
# subroutine log_msg
###########################
sub log_msg {
    my $error_msg = shift;
    
  openlog $0,'nowait,pid','local7';
    $rc=syslog('notice', "[ID xxx local7.alert] $error_msg");
    closelog(); ##  Close the syslog handle
    return;
}

my $server = Net::IMAP::Simple->new($mailhost);

$server->login($user, $password);
my $before_msgs = $server->select('INBOX');
my $heartbeat_msg = "BEFORE EXPUNGE: $before_msgs message(s) in the in
+box";
log_msg($heartbeat_msg);

my @boxes   = $server->mailboxes;

#foreach my $box ( @boxes ) {
#    print "BOX: $box\n";
#}##double check the names of the mailboxes

foreach my $msg (1 .. $before_msgs){
    my $delete_rc = $server->delete($msg);
    print "DELETE RC for msg $msg: $delete_rc\n";
}
my $expunge_rc = $server->expunge_mailbox('INBOX');
print "EXPUNGE RC: $expunge_rc\n";
print "\$?: $? \$! $!\n";

my $after_msgs = $server->select('INBOX');
my $heartbeat_msg = "AFTER EXPUNGE: $after_msgs message(s) in the inbo
+x";
log_msg($heartbeat_msg);

$server->quit();
exit();
[download]

---

Printed results:
$ test.pl
DELETE RC for msg 1: 1
DELETE RC for msg 2: 1
EXPUNGE RC: 
$?: 0 $! Illegal seek
[download]

Based on the blank after "EXPUNGE RC:" it would appear expunge_mailbox is returning undef, which isn't one of the two choices for success or failure...

syslog contents:
Sep 15 10:34:08 somebox test.pl[17786]: [ID xxx local7.alert] BEFORE E
+XPUNGE: 2 message(s) in the inbox
Sep 15 10:34:08 somebox test.pl[17786]: [ID xxx local7.alert] AFTER EX
+PUNGE: 2 message(s) in the inbox
[download]