Access to a POP3 mailbox

[bill]

I am in preliminary design of a contact management program. The
user would like to use his current mail server (POP3 - remote).

I have done some reading on the IMAP functions but am unclear if
the following is possible:

Using the IMAP functions can I write a PHP script to:
scan the subject lines of all mail in the mailbox ?
pop just certain messages from the inbox ?
delete those messages from the inbox ?

all without disturbing the other messages in his inbox that are
downloaded to his usual email client (Thunderbird).

If anyone can suggest a better way to do this, I am all ears.

bill

[C.]

Re: Access to a POP3 mailbox

On 22 Mar, 11:18, bill <nob...@spamcop .netwrote:

I am in preliminary design of a contact management program. The
user would like to use his current mail server (POP3 - remote).

<snip>

Using the IMAP functions can I write a PHP script to:
scan the subject lines of all mail in the mailbox ?
pop just certain messages from the inbox ?
delete those messages from the inbox ?
>

Yes. Something like...

$in=imap_open(. ..);
$msgs=imap_head ers($in); // gets the headers from the currently
available msgs
foreach ($msgs as $index=>$header ) {
if (strstr($header , $look_for)) { // may want to explicitly extract
the subject
$email=imap_fet chstructure($in , $index);
if ($email && save($email)) {
imap_delete($in , $index);
}
}
}
imap_expunge($i n);
imap_close($in) ;

all without disturbing the other messages in his inbox that are
downloaded to his usual email client (Thunderbird).
>

....but you need to make sure that he doesn't delete your meassages
from the mailbox when he downloads the other stuff.

If anyone can suggest a better way to do this, I am all ears.

It'd be a lot better to handle the messages synchronously, e.g. with a
custom procmail script launching the PHP script. But that rather
depends on having POSIX or similar on the MTA or MUA box.

C.

[Manuel Lemos]

Re: Access to a POP3 mailbox

Hello,

on 03/22/2007 08:18 AM bill said the following:

I am in preliminary design of a contact management program. The user
would like to use his current mail server (POP3 - remote).
>
I have done some reading on the IMAP functions but am unclear if the
following is possible:
>
Using the IMAP functions can I write a PHP script to:
scan the subject lines of all mail in the mailbox ?
pop just certain messages from the inbox ?
delete those messages from the inbox ?
>
all without disturbing the other messages in his inbox that are
downloaded to his usual email client (Thunderbird).
>
If anyone can suggest a better way to do this, I am all ears.

You may want to take a look at this POP3 class. You can use the class
RetrieveMessage function to retrieve just the message headers and get
only the first body lines you need.

http://www.phpclasses.org/pop3class

You can also this MIME message parser class that can decode message and
extract headers that use non-ASCII characters. I think you need that to
filter message by subject or sender, as messages with non-ASCII
characters are encoded with q-encoding like this:

=?iso-8859-1?Q?

http://www.phpclasses.org/mimeparser

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator

http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

[bill]

Re: Access to a POP3 mailbox

C. wrote:

On 22 Mar, 11:18, bill <nob...@spamcop .netwrote:

>I am in preliminary design of a contact management program. The
>user would like to use his current mail server (POP3 - remote).

<snip>

>Using the IMAP functions can I write a PHP script to:
> scan the subject lines of all mail in the mailbox ?
> pop just certain messages from the inbox ?
> delete those messages from the inbox ?
>>

>
Yes. Something like...
>
$in=imap_open(. ..);
$msgs=imap_head ers($in); // gets the headers from the currently
available msgs
foreach ($msgs as $index=>$header ) {
if (strstr($header , $look_for)) { // may want to explicitly extract
the subject
$email=imap_fet chstructure($in , $index);
if ($email && save($email)) {
imap_delete($in , $index);
}
}
}
imap_expunge($i n);
imap_close($in) ;

THank you.

>

>all without disturbing the other messages in his inbox that are
>downloaded to his usual email client (Thunderbird).
>>

>
...but you need to make sure that he doesn't delete your meassages
from the mailbox when he downloads the other stuff.
>

>If anyone can suggest a better way to do this, I am all ears.

>
It'd be a lot better to handle the messages synchronously, e.g. with a
custom procmail script launching the PHP script. But that rather
depends on having POSIX or similar on the MTA or MUA box.
>
C.
>

I don't have control over the MTA, which is on a mail server that
is not under the same ownership as the php server.
bill

[bill]

Re: Access to a POP3 mailbox

Manuel Lemos wrote:

Hello,
>
on 03/22/2007 08:18 AM bill said the following:

>I am in preliminary design of a contact management program. The user
>would like to use his current mail server (POP3 - remote).
>>
>I have done some reading on the IMAP functions but am unclear if the
>following is possible:
>>
>Using the IMAP functions can I write a PHP script to:
> scan the subject lines of all mail in the mailbox ?
> pop just certain messages from the inbox ?
> delete those messages from the inbox ?
>>
>all without disturbing the other messages in his inbox that are
>downloaded to his usual email client (Thunderbird).
>>
>If anyone can suggest a better way to do this, I am all ears.

>
You may want to take a look at this POP3 class. You can use the class
RetrieveMessage function to retrieve just the message headers and get
only the first body lines you need.
>
http://www.phpclasses.org/pop3class
>
You can also this MIME message parser class that can decode message and
extract headers that use non-ASCII characters. I think you need that to
filter message by subject or sender, as messages with non-ASCII
characters are encoded with q-encoding like this:
>
=?iso-8859-1?Q?
>
http://www.phpclasses.org/mimeparser
>

Thank you