Perlmonks greetings,

I am still in my infancy at writing perl. The following script is by no means ingeneous, but serves a simple purpose of mine.

The script is not fully tested. I am very interested in enhancing the part where I present the user with the options and wait for the command. I have used a hash to store the options and a loop to resent the options to the user, but I am not totally convinced that this is the best way to go about it.

Thank you.

use strict;
use Net::POP3;
my ($popmail, $numofmessages, $command, @params);
my (%options);

%options = (
    'C' => ['Check', \&pop_check, ' the messages in the current accoun
+t'],
    'D' => ['Delete', \&pop_delete, ' a message or messages from your 
+account'],
    'L' => ['Download', \&pop_download, ' a message or messages from y
+our account'],
    'Q' => ['Quit', \&pop_quit, '...']
);

## ############################################################
## first run, logon and check the messages in the mailbox
$numofmessages = pop_login();
pop_check();

do {
    print_menu();
    chomp($command = <STDIN>);
    ## the input format should be along the lines of
    ## D,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
    ($command, @params) = split /,/,$command;
    $command = uc($command);

    
    if ($options{$command}) {
        $options{$command}[1]->(@params)
    } else {
        print 80 x "=";
        print "\nCommand unrecognized\n";
        print 80 x "=";
    }

} until ($command eq 'Q');


## ############################################################
## print the menu options that are stored in the %options hash
sub print_menu {
    my($option);
    foreach $option (keys %options) {
        print "$option : $options{$option}[0] - $options{$option}[2]\n
+";
    }
}

## ############################################################
## Delete the specified messages
sub pop_delete {
    
    ## return codes to be used for interpretation
    ## in later development of the script
    return 0 unless (exists($_[0]) );


    ## the messages will not be deleted instantly
    ## they will be marked for deletion and only
    ## removed from the server upon quitting the session
    foreach (@_) {
        $popmail->delete($_);
        print ". Message $_ marked for deletion.\n";
    }
    return 1;
}

## ############################################################
## Download the specified messages
sub pop_download {
    
    ## return codes to be used for interpretation
    ## in later development of the script
    return 0 unless (exists($_[0]) );

    ## the messages will not be deleted instantly
    ## they will be marked for deletion and only
    ## removed from the server upon quitting the session
    foreach (@_) {
        open MESSAGE, ">message_$_.txt";
        $popmail->get($_, MESSAGE)
        print ". Message $_ saved in message_$_.txt.\n";
    }
    return 1;
}


## ############################################################
## login to the mail server
sub pop_login {
my($server, $username, $password);

    if (@_ != 0) { ## any arguments passed
        $server = shift;
        $username = shift;
        $password = shift;
    }
    
    ## ######################################################
    ## use the defaults unless otherwise specified
    $server        = 'mail.server.com'    unless (defined);
    $username    = 'username'        unless (defined);
    $password    = 'password'        unless (defined);

    $popmail = Net::POP3->new($server);

    if ($popmail) {
        $numofmessages = $popmail->login($username , $password);
    } else {
        print "Server $server not available\n\n";
        exit
    }
    
    ## the login method will either return the number of messages
    ## upon successful login
    ## a sting equating to ZERO if there are not messages
    ## undef if login is not successful

    if ( defined($numofmessages) ) { ## no messages in mailbox
        return $numofmessages;
    } else {
        return 0;
    }
}

## ############################################################
## check messages in the current server
sub pop_check {

    if ( defined($numofmessages) ) {

        if ($numofmessages == 0) { ## no mail
            print "There are no messages in your mailbox\n\n";
            exit;
        } else {
            print "$numofmessages message(s) in your mailbox\n\n";

            my ($i, $content, $messagesize);
            for ($i=1; $i<=$numofmessages; $i++) {
                $content = $popmail->top($i);
                $messagesize = $popmail->list($i);
                
                print "\nMessage $i\n";
                print "Message Size = $messagesize\n";
                
                foreach (@{$content}) {    /^(From|Subject|Date):\s+/i
+ && print; }
            } # for the message loop
        } # for the second if

    } else {
        print "Could not login to specified account\n";
        exit;
    } # for the if defined
}

## ############################################################
## quit the current session
sub pop_quit {
    $popmail->quit;
}
[download]