Net::POP3
Net::POP3(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Net::POP3(3)
NAME
Net::POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3 Client class (RFC1939)
SYNOPSIS
use Net::POP3;
# Constructors
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host');
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host', Timeout => 60);
if ($pop->login($username, $password) > 0) {
my $msgnums = $pop->list; # hashref of msgnum => size
foreach my $msgnum (keys %$msgnums) {
my $msg = $pop->get($msgnum);
print @$msg;
$pop->delete($msgnum);
}
}
$pop->quit;
DESCRIPTION
This module implements a client interface to the POP3 protocol,
enabling a perl5 application to talk to POP3 servers. This documenta-
tion assumes that you are familiar with the POP3 protocol described in
RFC1939.
A new Net::POP3 object must be created with the new method. Once this
has been done, all POP3 commands are accessed via method calls on the
object.
CONSTRUCTOR
new ( [ HOST ] [, OPTIONS ] 0
This is the constructor for a new Net::POP3 object. "HOST" is the
name of the remote host to which an POP3 connection is required.
"HOST" is optional. If "HOST" is not given then it may instead be
passed as the "Host" option described below. If neither is given
then the "POP3_Hosts" specified in "Net::Config" will be used.
"OPTIONS" are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value
pairs. Possible options are:
Host - POP3 host to connect to. It may be a single scalar, as
defined for the "PeerAddr" option in IO::Socket::INET, or a refer-
ence to an array with hosts to try in turn. The "host" method will
return the value which was used to connect to the host.
ResvPort - If given then the socket for the "Net::POP3" object will
be bound to the local port given using "bind" when the socket is
created.
Timeout - Maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a response from the
POP3 server (default: 120)
Debug - Enable debugging information
METHODS
Unless otherwise stated all methods return either a true or false
value, with true meaning that the operation was a success. When a
method states that it returns a value, failure will be returned as
undef or an empty list.
auth ( USERNAME, PASSWORD )
Attempt SASL authentication.
user ( USER )
Send the USER command.
pass ( PASS )
Send the PASS command. Returns the number of messages in the mail-
box.
login ( [ USER [, PASS ]] )
Send both the USER and PASS commands. If "PASS" is not given the
"Net::POP3" uses "Net::Netrc" to lookup the password using the host
and username. If the username is not specified then the current
user name will be used.
Returns the number of messages in the mailbox. However if there are
no messages on the server the string "0E0" will be returned. This
is will give a true value in a boolean context, but zero in a
numeric context.
If there was an error authenticating the user then undef will be
returned.
apop ( [ USER [, PASS ]] )
Authenticate with the server identifying as "USER" with password
"PASS". Similar to "login", but the password is not sent in clear
text.
To use this method you must have the Digest::MD5 or the MD5 module
installed, otherwise this method will return undef.
banner ()
Return the sever's connection banner
capa ()
Return a reference to a hash of the capabilities of the server.
APOP is added as a pseudo capability. Note that I've been unable
to find a list of the standard capability values, and some appear
to be multi-word and some are not. We make an attempt at intelli-
gently parsing them, but it may not be correct.
capabilities ()
Just like capa, but only uses a cache from the last time we asked
the server, so as to avoid asking more than once.
top ( MSGNUM [, NUMLINES ] )
Get the header and the first "NUMLINES" of the body for the message
"MSGNUM". Returns a reference to an array which contains the lines
of text read from the server.
list ( [ MSGNUM ] )
If called with an argument the "list" returns the size of the mes-
sage in octets.
If called without arguments a reference to a hash is returned. The
keys will be the "MSGNUM"'s of all undeleted messages and the val-
ues will be their size in octets.
get ( MSGNUM [, FH ] )
Get the message "MSGNUM" from the remote mailbox. If "FH" is not
given then get returns a reference to an array which contains the
lines of text read from the server. If "FH" is given then the lines
returned from the server are printed to the filehandle "FH".
getfh ( MSGNUM )
As per get(), but returns a tied filehandle. Reading from this
filehandle returns the requested message. The filehandle will
return EOF at the end of the message and should not be reused.
last ()
Returns the highest "MSGNUM" of all the messages accessed.
popstat ()
Returns a list of two elements. These are the number of undeleted
elements and the size of the mbox in octets.
ping ( USER )
Returns a list of two elements. These are the number of new mes-
sages and the total number of messages for "USER".
uidl ( [ MSGNUM ] )
Returns a unique identifier for "MSGNUM" if given. If "MSGNUM" is
not given "uidl" returns a reference to a hash where the keys are
the message numbers and the values are the unique identifiers.
delete ( MSGNUM )
Mark message "MSGNUM" to be deleted from the remote mailbox. All
messages that are marked to be deleted will be removed from the
remote mailbox when the server connection closed.
reset ()
Reset the status of the remote POP3 server. This includes resetting
the status of all messages to not be deleted.
quit ()
Quit and close the connection to the remote POP3 server. Any mes-
sages marked as deleted will be deleted from the remote mailbox.
NOTES
If a "Net::POP3" object goes out of scope before "quit" method is
called then the "reset" method will called before the connection is
closed. This means that any messages marked to be deleted will not be.
SEE ALSO
Net::Netrc, Net::Cmd
AUTHOR
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1995-2003 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program
is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.8.6 2007-08-26 Net::POP3(3)
