NAME
Courriel - High level email parsing and manipulation
VERSION
version 0.39
SYNOPSIS
my $email = Courriel->parse( text => $raw_email );
print $email->subject;
print $_->address for $email->participants;
print $email->datetime->year;
if ( my $part = $email->plain_body_part ) {
print $part->content;
}
DESCRIPTION
This class exists to provide a high level API for working with emails,
particular for processing incoming email. It is primarily a wrapper
around the other classes in the Courriel distro, especially
Courriel::Headers, Courriel::Part::Single, and
Courriel::Part::Multipart. If you need lower level information about an
email, it should be available from one of these classes.
API
This class provides the following methods:
Courriel->parse( text => $raw_email, is_character => 0|1 )
This parses the given text and returns a new Courriel object. The text
can be provided as a string or a reference to a string.
If you pass a reference, then the scalar underlying the reference will
be modified, so don't pass in something you don't want modified.
By default, Courriel expects that content passed in text is binary
data. This means that it has not been decoded into utf-8 with
Encode::decode() or by using a :encoding(UTF-8) IO layer.
In practice, this doesn't matter for most emails, since they either
contain only ASCII data or they actually do contain binary
(non-character) data. However, if an email is using the 8bit
Content-Transfer-Encoding, then this does matter.
If the email has already been decoded, you must set is_character to a
true value.
It's safest to simply pass binary data to Courriel and let it handle
decoding internally.
$email->parts()
Returns an array (not a reference) of the parts this email contains.
$email->part_count()
Returns the number of parts this email contains.
$email->is_multipart()
Returns true if the top-level part is a multipart part, false
otherwise.
$email->top_level_part()
Returns the actual top level part for the object. You're probably
better off just calling $email->parts() most of the time, since when
the email is multipart, the top level part is just a container.
$email->subject()
Returns the email's Subject header value, or undef if it doesn't have
one.
$email->datetime()
Returns a DateTime object for the email. The DateTime object is always
in the "UTC" time zone.
This uses the Date header by default one. Otherwise it looks at the
date in each Received header, and then it looks for a Resent-Date
header. If none of these exists, it just returns DateTime->now().
$email->from()
This returns a single Email::Address object based on the From header of
the email. If the email has no From header or if the From header is
broken, it returns undef.
$email->participants()
This returns a list of Email::Address objects, one for each unique
participant in the email. This includes any address in the From, To, or
CC headers.
Just like with the From header, broken addresses will not be included.
$email->recipients()
This returns a list of Email::Address objects, one for each unique
recipient in the email. This includes any address in the To or CC
headers.
Just like with the From header, broken addresses will not be included.
$email->to()
This returns a list of Email::Address objects, one for each unique
address in the To header.
Just like with the From header, broken addresses will not be included.
$email->cc()
This returns a list of Email::Address objects, one for each unique
address in the CC header.
Just like with the From header, broken addresses will not be included.
$email->plain_body_part()
This returns the first Courriel::Part::Single object in the email with
a mime type of "text/plain" and an inline disposition, if one exists.
$email->html_body_part()
This returns the first Courriel::Part::Single object in the email with
a mime type of "text/html" and an inline disposition, if one exists.
$email->clone_without_attachments()
Returns a new Courriel object that only contains inline parts from the
original email, effectively removing all attachments.
$email->first_part_matching( sub { ... } )
Given a subroutine reference, this method calls that subroutine for
each part in the email, in a depth-first search.
The subroutine receives the part as its only argument. If it returns
true, this method returns that part.
$email->all_parts_matching( sub { ... } )
Given a subroutine reference, this method calls that subroutine for
each part in the email, in a depth-first search.
The subroutine receives the part as its only argument. If it returns
true, this method includes that part.
This method returns all of the parts that match the subroutine.
$email->content_type()
Returns the Courriel::Header::ContentType object associated with the
email.
$email->headers()
Returns the Courriel::Headers object for this email.
$email->stream_to( output => $output )
This method will send the stringified email to the specified output.
The output can be a subroutine reference, a filehandle, or an object
with a print() method. The output may be sent as a single string, as a
list of strings, or via multiple calls to the output.
For large emails, streaming can be much more memory efficient than
generating a single string in memory.
$part->as_string()
Returns the email as a string, along with its headers. Lines will be
terminated with "\r\n".
ROBUSTNESS PRINCIPLE
Courriel aims to respect the common Internet robustness principle (aka
Postel's law). Courriel is conservative in the output it generates, and
liberal in what it accepts.
When parsing, the goal is to never die and always return as much
information as possible. Any input that causes the Courriel->parse() to
die means there's a bug in the parser. Please report these bugs.
Conversely, Courriel aims to respect all relevant RFCs in its output,
except when it preserves the original data in a parsed email. If you're
using Courriel::Builder to create emails from scratch, any output that
isn't RFC-compliant is a bug.
FUTURE PLANS
This release is still rough, and I have some plans for additional
features:
More methods for walking all parts
Some more methods for walking/collecting multiple parts would be
useful.
More?
Stay tuned for details.
WHY DID I WRITE THIS MODULE?
There a lot of email modules/distros on CPAN. Why didn't I use/fix one
of them?
* Mail::Box
This one probably does everything this module does and more, but it's
really, really big and complicated, forcing the end user to make a
lot of choices just to get started. If you need it, it's great, but I
generally find it to be too much module for me.
* Email::Simple and Email::MIME
These are surprisingly not simple. They suffer from a problematic API
(too high level in some spots, too low in others), and a poor
separation of concerns. I've hacked on these enough to know that I
can never make them do what I want.
* Everything Else
There's a lot of other email modules on CPAN, but none of them really
seem any better than the ones mentioned above.
CREDITS
This module rips some chunks of code from a few other places, notably
several of the Email suite modules.
BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-courriel@rt.cpan.org,
or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org. I will be notified,
and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I
make changes.
DONATIONS
If you'd like to thank me for the work I've done on this module, please
consider making a "donation" to me via PayPal. I spend a lot of free
time creating free software, and would appreciate any support you'd
care to offer.
Please note that I am not suggesting that you must do this in order for
me to continue working on this particular software. I will continue to
do so, inasmuch as I have in the past, for as long as it interests me.
Similarly, a donation made in this way will probably not make me work
on this software much more, unless I get so many donations that I can
consider working on free software full time, which seems unlikely at
best.
To donate, log into PayPal and send money to autarch@urth.org or use
the button on this page: http://www.urth.org/~autarch/fs-donation.html
AUTHOR
Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>
CONTRIBUTORS
* Gregory Oschwald <goschwald@maxmind.com>
* Ricardo Signes <rjbs@users.noreply.github.com>
* Zbigniew Ĺukasiak <zzbbyy@gmail.com>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is Copyright (c) 2015 by Dave Rolsky.
This is free software, licensed under:
The Artistic License 2.0 (GPL Compatible)