Mail::Box::Dbx - read Outlook Express folders
Mail::Box::Dbx is a Mail::Box::File is a Mail::Box is a Mail::Reporter
use Mail::Box::Dbx; my $folder = Mail::Box::Dbx->new(...);
This documentation describes how to read from Outlook Express (dbx) folders. Even on Unix/Linux, you can access these folders to read the data, or copy it to a different format. Modifying of xbd files is not supported.
These dbx folders are accessed using Mail::Transport::Dbx which is distributed via CPAN as separate package. This MAil::Transport::Dbx module is based on the open source library named libpst, which can be found at http://alioth.debian.org/projects/libpst/. The library does not support writing of dbx files, and therefore limits the possibilities of this package.
MAil::Transport::Dbx
libpst
Extends "DESCRIPTION" in Mail::Box::File.
Extends "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "OVERLOADED" in Mail::Box
Extends "METHODS" in Mail::Box::File.
Extends "Constructors" in Mail::Box::File.
-Option --Defined in --Default access Mail::Box always 'r' body_delayed_type Mail::Box Mail::Message::Body::Delayed body_type Mail::Box::File <see description> coerce_options Mail::Box [] create Mail::Box not implemented extract Mail::Box 10240 field_type Mail::Box undef fix_headers Mail::Box <false> folder Mail::Box =Folders.dbx folderdir Mail::Box . head_delayed_type Mail::Box Mail::Message::Head::Delayed head_type Mail::Box Mail::Message::Head::Complete keep_dups Mail::Box <false> lock_extension Mail::Box::File '.lock' lock_file Mail::Box <foldername><lock-extension> lock_timeout Mail::Box 1 hour lock_type Mail::Box 'NONE' lock_wait Mail::Box 10 seconds locker Mail::Box undef log Mail::Reporter 'WARNINGS' manager Mail::Box undef message_type Mail::Box Mail::Box::Dbx::Message multipart_type Mail::Box Mail::Message::Body::Multipart remove_when_empty Mail::Box not implemented save_on_exit Mail::Box not implemented trace Mail::Reporter 'WARNINGS' trusted Mail::Box <depends on folder location> write_policy Mail::Box::File not implemented
Extends "The folder" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "The folder" in Mail::Box
Inherited, see "METHODS" in Mail::Box::File
Inherited, see "The folder" in Mail::Box::File
Extends "Folder flags" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "Folder flags" in Mail::Box
Extends "The messages" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "The messages" in Mail::Box
Extends "Sub-folders" in Mail::Box::File.
It is advised to set the check flag, because dbx folder often list large amounts of folder names which do not really exist. However, checking does consume some time.
check
-Option --Defined in --Default check Mail::Box <false> folder Mail::Box <from calling object> folderdir Mail::Box <from folder> skip_empty Mail::Box <false>
Inherited, see "Sub-folders" in Mail::Box
Extends "Internals" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "Internals" in Mail::Box
Creation is not supported for dbx folders.
-Option --Defined in--Default folderdir Mail::Box undef
Translate a folder name into a filename, using the $folderdir value to replace a leading =.
=
If no $foldername is specified, then the value of the folder option is taken. A dbx folder is a file which name ends on .dbx (case insensitive).
folder
.dbx
-Option --Defined in --Default folder undef folderdir Mail::Box undef
Inherited, see "Internals" in Mail::Box::File
The parsing of messages is a combined job for the Mail::Transport::Dbx module (to get the right data) and read(). Asking for the parser will provide the transporter object. If asked more than once, each time the same object will be returned.
Extends "Other methods" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "Other methods" in Mail::Box
Extends "Error handling" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter
Extends "Cleanup" in Mail::Box::File.
Inherited, see "Cleanup" in Mail::Box
Extends "DETAILS" in Mail::Box::File.
Extends "Different kinds of folders" in Mail::Box::File.
Extends "Available folder types" in Mail::Box::File.
Extends "Folder class implementation" in Mail::Box::File.
DBX files are create by Outlook Express. I can not tell you too much about it, because me (as author) never use Windows or MicroSoft tools. Still, it is possible to access some Outlook created folders from Unix.
The folder structure for dbx starts with a single Folders.dbx file. This folder contains names of sub-folders. Each folder can either contain messages, or contains sub-folders. Combinations are not possible.
Folders.dbx
The ol2mbox project (see http://sourceforge.net/project/ol2mbox/) has created a libdbx which can read dbx files using nearly any operating system. You can simply transport a dbx file from Windows to Unix/Linux and the read all the messages from it.
libdbx
Tassilo von Parseval wrote a Perl wrapper around this C-library, and distributes it as Mail::Transport::Dbx. Although it named in one the MailBox namespaces, it is a separate product, because it requires a C compiler. Besides, the module will have its own life.
The title of this section is to attract your attension, but is does not describe anything special related to DBX or MBOX: you can convert any kind of mail folder into another with the following code.
. Example: converting folders
my $from = Mail::Box::Dbx->new(folder => 'Folder.dbx') or exit; my $to = Mail::Box::Mbox->new(folder => '/tmp/mbox', access => 'w', create => 1) or die; $from->copyTo($to);
Appending messages to a not-opened file-organized folder may fail when the operating system does not allow write access to the file at hand.
Writing an empty folder will usually cause that folder to be removed, which fails for the indicated reason. new(remove_when_empty)
Writing an empty folder will usually cause that folder to be removed, which fails for the indicated reason. new(remove_when_empty) controls whether the empty folder will removed; setting it to false (0) may be needed to avoid this message.
0
The replace policy wrote a new folder file to update the existing, but was unable to give the final touch: replacing the old version of the folder file for the indicated reason.
You have opened the folder read-only --which is the default set by new(access)--, made modifications, and now want to close it. Set close(force) if you want to overrule the access mode, or close the folder with close(write) set to NEVER.
NEVER
For some reason, for instance disc full, removed by external process, or read-protection, it is impossible to copy one of the messages. Copying will proceed for the other messages.
The folder where the messages are copied to is not opened with write access (see new(access)). This has no relation with write permission to the folder which is controled by your operating system.
The message id is discovered more than once within the same folder, but the content of the message seems to be different. This should not be possible: each message must be unique.
Mail::Box is lazy: it tries to leave messages in the folders until they are used, which saves time and memory usage. When this message appears, something is terribly wrong: some lazy message are needed for updating the folder, but they cannot be retrieved from the original file anymore. In this case, messages can be lost.
This message does appear regularly on Windows systems when using the 'replace' write policy. Please help to find the cause, probably something to do with Windows incorrectly handling multiple filehandles open in the same file.
The folder must be opened with write access via new(access), otherwise removing it will be refused. So, you may have write-access according to the operating system, but that will not automatically mean that this delete method permits you to. The reverse remark is valid as well.
delete
The string does not follow the strict rules of the time span syntax which is permitted as parameter.
According to the RFCs, message-ids need to contain a unique random part, then an @, and then a domain name. This is made to avoid the creation of two messages with the same id. The warning emerges when the @ is missing from the string.
@
Fatal error: the specific package (or one of its superclasses) does not implement this method where it should. This message means that some other related classes do implement this method however the class at hand does not. Probably you should investigate this and probably inform the author of the package.
The copy includes the subfolders, but for some reason it was not possible to copy one of these. Copying will proceed for all other sub-folders.
When a folder is to be written, both replace and inplace write policies are tried, If both fail, the whole update fails. You may see other, related, error messages to indicate the real problem.
This module is part of Mail-Box distribution version 2.120, built on September 21, 2016. Website: http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/
Copyrights 2001-2016 by [Mark Overmeer]. For other contributors see ChangeLog.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html
To install Mail::Box, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Mail::Box
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Mail::Box
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.