This module implements a client interface to the POP3 protocol, enabling
a perl5 application to talk to POP3 servers. This documentation assumes
that you are familiar with the POP3 protocol described in RFC1081.
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.
EXAMPLES
Need some small examples in here :-)
CONSTRUCTOR
new ( [ HOST, ] [ OPTIONS ] )
This is the constructor for a new Net::POP3 object. "HOST" is the
name of the remote host to which a POP3 connection is required.
If "HOST" is not given, then the "POP3_Host" specified in "Net::Config"
will be used.
"OPTIONS" are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value pairs.
Possible options are:
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.
user ( USER )
Send the USER command.
pass ( PASS )
Send the PASS command. Returns the number of messages in the mailbox.
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 ti login, but the password is not sent in clear text.
To use this method you must have the MD5 package installed, if you do not
this method will return undef
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 message
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 values 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".
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 messages
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 reseting the
status of all messages to not be deleted.
quit ()
Quit and close the connection to the remote POP3 server. Any messages 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.
Copyright (c) 1995-1997 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.