NAME

Unicode::IMAPUtf7 - Perl extension to deal with IMAP UTF7

SYNOPSIS

  use Unicode::IMAPUtf7;

  my $t = Unicode::IMAPUtf7->new();
  print $t->encode('Répertoire');
  print $t->decode('R&AOk-pertoire');

**DEPRECATED**

  print Unicode::IMAPUtf7::imap_utf7_encode('R�pertoire');
  print Unicode::IMAPUtf7::imap_utf7_decode('R&AOk-pertoire');

**DEPRECATED**

DESCRIPTION

IMAP mailbox names are encoded in a modified UTF7 when names contains international characters outside of the printable ASCII range. The modified UTF-7 encoding is defined in RFC2060 (section 5.1.3).

METHODS

new()

Returns a new instance of a Unicode::IMAPUtf7 object.

encode($text)

Returns the modified UTF7-text for a string in UTF8.

decode($text)

Returns the decoded string into UTF8 data.

DEPRECATED METHODS

imap_utf7_encode: returns the modified UTF7-text for a string in Latin1.

imap_utf7_decode: returns the decoded string into Latin1 data.

These functions may disappear in some later version. Please update with the new OO and UTF8 scheme. See Unicode::String for conversion functions between Latin1 and UTF8.

RFC2060 - section 5.1.3 - Mailbox International Naming Convention

By convention, international mailbox names are specified using a modified version of the UTF-7 encoding described in [UTF-7]. The purpose of these modifications is to correct the following problems with UTF-7:

1) UTF-7 uses the "+" character for shifting; this conflicts with the common use of "+" in mailbox names, in particular USENET newsgroup names.

2) UTF-7's encoding is BASE64 which uses the "/" character; this conflicts with the use of "/" as a popular hierarchy delimiter.

3) UTF-7 prohibits the unencoded usage of "\"; this conflicts with the use of "\" as a popular hierarchy delimiter.

4) UTF-7 prohibits the unencoded usage of "~"; this conflicts with the use of "~" in some servers as a home directory indicator.

5) UTF-7 permits multiple alternate forms to represent the same string; in particular, printable US-ASCII chararacters can be represented in encoded form.

In modified UTF-7, printable US-ASCII characters except for "&" represent themselves; that is, characters with octet values 0x20-0x25 and 0x27-0x7e. The character "&" (0x26) is represented by the two- octet sequence "&-".

All other characters (octet values 0x00-0x1f, 0x7f-0xff, and all Unicode 16-bit octets) are represented in modified BASE64, with a further modification from [UTF-7] that "," is used instead of "/". Modified BASE64 MUST NOT be used to represent any printing US-ASCII character which can represent itself.

"&" is used to shift to modified BASE64 and "-" to shift back to US- ASCII. All names start in US-ASCII, and MUST end in US-ASCII (that is, a name that ends with a Unicode 16-bit octet MUST end with a "- ").

For example, here is a mailbox name which mixes English, Japanese, and Chinese text: ~peter/mail/&ZeVnLIqe-/&U,BTFw-

REQUESTS & BUGS

Please report any requests, suggestions or bugs via the RT bug-tracking system at http://rt.cpan.org/ or email to bug-Unicode-IMAPUtf7\@rt.cpan.org.

http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Unicode-IMAPUtf7 is the RT queue for Unicode::IMAPUtf7. Please check to see if your bug has already been reported.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2001-2004

Fabien Potencier, fabpot@cpan.org

This software may be freely copied and distributed under the same terms and conditions as Perl.

SEE ALSO

perl(1), Unicode::String.

cpanm Unicode::IMAPUtf7

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Unicode::IMAPUtf7