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NAME

Mail::Box::MH::Labels - maintain MH message related labels

INHERITANCE

 Mail::Box::MH::Labels
   is a Mail::Reporter

SYNOPSIS

 my $labels = Mail::Box::MH::Labels->new;
 $labels->read(...)
 $labels->write(...)

DESCRIPTION

MH type message folders use one dedicated file per folder-directory to list special tags to messages in that folder. By doing this, mail agents may avoid parsing all the messages, which is very resource consuming.

Labels can be used to group messages, for instance to reflect which messages have been read or which look like spam. Some labels are predefined, but more can be added without limitation.

METHODS

Constructors

Mail::Box::MH::Labels->new(OPTIONS)

     Option    Defined in       Default      
     filename                   <required>   
     log       L<Mail::Reporter>  C<'WARNINGS'>
     trace     L<Mail::Reporter>  C<'WARNINGS'>

    . filename FILENAME

      The FILENAME which is used in each directory to store the headers of all mails. The filename must be an absolute path.

    . log LEVEL

    . trace LEVEL

The Label Table

$obj->append(MESSAGES)

    Append the label information about the specified MESSAGES to the end of the label file. The information will not be merged with the information already present in the label file.

$obj->filename

    Returns the name of the index file.

$obj->get(MSGNR)

    Look if there is label info for message MSGNR.

$obj->print(FILEHANDLE, MESSAGES)

    Print the labels of the specified messages to the opened file.

$obj->read

    Read all label information from file.

$obj->write(MESSAGES)

    Write the labels related to the specified messages to the label file.

Error handling

$obj->AUTOLOAD

$obj->defaultTrace([LEVEL, [LEVEL])

Mail::Box::MH::Labels->defaultTrace([LEVEL, [LEVEL])

$obj->errors

$obj->log([LEVEL [,STRINGS]])

Mail::Box::MH::Labels->log([LEVEL [,STRINGS]])

$obj->logPriority(LEVEL)

Mail::Box::MH::Labels->logPriority(LEVEL)

$obj->logSettings

$obj->notImplemented

$obj->report([LEVEL])

$obj->reportAll([LEVEL])

$obj->trace([LEVEL])

$obj->warnings

Cleanup

$obj->DESTROY

$obj->inGlobalDestruction

DIAGNOSTICS

Error: Package $package does not implement $method.

Fatal error: the specific package (or one of its superclasses) does not implement this method where it should. This message means that some other related classes do implement this method however the class at hand does not. Probably you should investigate this and probably inform the author of the package.

DETAILS

MH labels

Typically, the file which contains the labels is called .mh_sequences. The MH messages are numbered from 1. As example content for .mh_sequences:

 cur: 93
 unseen: 32 35-56 67-80

To generalize labels on messages, two are treated specially:

  • cur

    The cur specifies the number of the message where the user stopped reading mail from this folder at last access. Internally in these modules referred to as label current.

  • unseen

    With unseen is listed which message was never read. This must be a mistake in the design of MH: it must be a source of confusion. People should never use labels with a negation in the name:

     if($seen)           if(!$unseen)    #yuk!
     if(!$seen)          if($unseen)
     unless($seen)       unless($unseen) #yuk!

    So: label unseen is translated into seen for internal use.

REFERENCES

See the Mail::Box website at http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/ for more details.

COPYRIGHTS

Module version 2.042. Written by Mark Overmeer (mark@overmeer.net). See the ChangeLog for other contributors.

Copyright (c) 2001-2003 by the author(s). All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.