NAME

Mail::Message::Head::Complete - the header of one message

CLASS INHERITANCE

 Mail::Message::Head::Complete
   is a Mail::Message::Head
   is a Mail::Reporter

 Mail::Message::Head::Complete is realized by
   Mail::Message::Head::Delayed
   Mail::Message::Head::Subset

SYNOPSIS

 my $head = Mail::Message::Head::Complete->new;
 See Mail::Message::Head

DESCRIPTION

E-mail's message can be in various states: unread, partially read, and fully read. The class stores a message of which all header lines are known for sure.

METHODS

Initiation

build FIELDS

See Mail::Message::Head::build()

new OPTIONS

(Class method)

 OPTION               DEFAULT
 field_type           'Mail::Message::Field::Fast'
 log                  'WARNINGS'
 message              undef
 modified             <false>
 trace                'WARNINGS'

field_type => CLASS

See Mail::Message::Head::new(field_type)

log => LEVEL

See Mail::Reporter::new(log)

message => MESSAGE

See Mail::Message::Head::new(message)

modified => BOOLEAN

See Mail::Message::Head::new(modified)

trace => LEVEL

See Mail::Reporter::new(trace)

The Header

clone [FIELDS]

Make a copy of the header, optionally limited only to the header lines specified by FIELDS. The lines which are taken must start with one of the list. If no list is specified, all will be taken.

Examples:

 my $newhead = $head->clone('Subject', 'Received');

isDelayed

See Mail::Message::Head::isDelayed()

isEmpty

See Mail::Message::Head::isEmpty()

isModified

See Mail::Message::Head::isModified()

isMultipart

See Mail::Message::Head::isMultipart()

message [MESSAGE]

See Mail::Message::Head::message()

modified [BOOLEAN]

See Mail::Message::Head::modified()

Constructing a Header

add FIELD | LINE | (NAME,BODY[,ATTRS])

Add a field to the header. If a field is added more than once, all values are stored in the header, in the order they are added.

When a FIELD object is specified (some Mail::Message::Field instance), that will be added. Another possibility is to specify a raw header LINE, or a header line nicely split-up in NAME and BODY, in which case the field constructor is called for you.

LINE or BODY specifications which are terminated by a new-line are considered to be correctly folded. Lines which are not terminated by a new-line will be folded when needed: new-lines will be added where required. It is strongly adviced to let Mail::Box do the folding for you.

The return value of this method is the Mail::Message::Field object which is created (or was specified).

Examples:

 my $head  = Mail::Message::Head->new;
 $head->add('Subject: hi!');
 $head->add(From => 'me@home');
 my $field = Mail::Message::Field->new('To: you@there');
 $head->add($field);
 my Mail::Message::Field $s = $head->add(Sender => 'I');

delete NAME

Remove the field with the specified name. If the header contained multiple lines with the same name, they will be replaced all together. This method simply calls reset() without replacement fields.

removeField FIELD

Remove the specified FIELD from the header. This is useful when there are possible more than one fields with the same name, and you need to remove exactly one of them. Also have a look at delete(), reset() and set().

reset NAME, FIELDS

Replace the values in the header fields named by NAME with the values specified in the list of FIELDS. A single name can correspond to multiple repeated fields.

For Received fields, you should take a look at resent groups, as implemented in Mail::Message::Head::ResentGroup. Removing those lines without their related lines is not a smart idea. Read the details Mail::Message::Head::ResentGroup::delete().

If FIELDS is empty, the corresponding NAME fields will be removed. The location of removed fields in the header order will be remembered. Fields with the same name which are added later will appear at the remembered position. This is equivalent to the delete() method.

Examples:

 # reduce number of 'Keywords' lines to last 5)
 my @keywords = $head->get('Keywords');
 $head->reset('Keywords', @keywords[-5..-1]) if @keywords > 5;

 # Reduce the number of Received lines to only the last added one.
 my @rgs = $head->resentGroups;
 shift @rgs;     # keep this one (later is added in front)
 $_->delete foreach @rgs;

set FIELD | LINE | (NAME, BODY [,ATTRS])

The set method is similar to the add() method, and takes the same options. However, existing values for fields will be removed before a new value is added.

Access to the Header

addResentGroup RESENT-GROUP|DATA

Add a RESENT-GROUP (a Mail::Message::Head::ResentGroup object) to the header. If you specify DATA, that is used to create such group first. If no Received line is specified, it will be created for you.

These header lines have nothing to do with the user's sense of reply or forward actions: these lines trace the e-mail transport mechanism.

Examples:

 my $rg = Mail::Message::Head::ResentGroup->new(head => $head, ...);
 $head->addResentGroup($rg);

 my $rg = $head->addResentGroup(From => 'me');

count NAME

Count the number of fields with this NAME. Most fields will return 1: only one occurance in the header. As example, the Received fields are usually present more than once.

get NAME [,INDEX]

See Mail::Message::Head::get()

grepNames [NAMES|ARRAY-OF-NAMES|REGEXS]

Filter from all header names the names which start will any of the specified list. When no names are specified, all names will be returned. The list is ordered as they where read from file, or added later.

The NAMES are regular expressions, and will all be matched case insensitive and attached to the front of the string only. You may also specify one or more prepared regexes.

Examples:

 print $head->grepNames();         # same as $head->names
 print $head->grepNames('X-', 'Subject', ');
 print $head->grepNames('To\b');   # will only select To

guessBodySize

Try to estimate the size of the body of this message, but without parsing the header or body. The result might be undef or a few percent of the real size. It may even be very far of the real value, that's why this is a guess.

guessTimeStamp

Make a guess about when the message was origanally posted, based on the information found in the header.

For some kinds of folders, Mail::Box::guessTimestamp() may produce a better result, for instance by looking at the modification time of the file in which the message is stored. Also some protocols, like POP can supply that information.

knownNames

See Mail::Message::Head::knownNames()

names

Returns a full ordered list of known field names, as defined in the header. Fields which were reset() to be empty will still be listed here.

nrLines

Return the number of lines needed to display this header (including the trailing newline)

print [FILEHANDLE]

Print all headers to the specified FILEHANDLE, by default the selected filehandle. See printUndisclosed() to limit the headers to include only the public headers.

Examples:

 $head->print(\*OUT);
 $head->print;

 my $fh = IO::File->new(...);
 $head->print($fh);

printUndisclosed [FILEHANDLE]

Like the usual print(), the header lines are printed to the specified FILEHANDLE, by default the selected filehandle. In this case, however, Bcc and Resent-Bcc lines are included.

resentGroups

Returns a list of Mail::Message::Head::ResentGroup objects which each represent one intermediate point in the message's transmission in the order as they appear in the header: the most recent one first.

A resent group contains a set of header fields whose names start with Resent-. Before the first Resent line is trace information, which is composed of an optional Return-Path field and an required Received field.

size

Return the number of bytes needed to display this header (including the trailing newline). On systems which use CRLF as line separator, the number of lines in the header (see nlLines()) must be added to find the actual size in the file.

string

Returns the whole header as one scalar (in scalar context) or list of lines (list context). Triggers completion.

timestamp

Will return a good indication of about when the message was send, with as little guessing as possible. The timestamp is encoded as time is on your system (see perldoc -f time), and as such usable for the gmtime and localtime methods.

Reading and Writing [internals]

addNoRealize FIELD

See Mail::Message::Head::addNoRealize()

addOrderedFields FIELDS

See Mail::Message::Head::addOrderedFields()

createFromLine

For some mail-folder types separate messages by a line starting with 'From '. If a message is moved to such folder from a folder-type which does not support these separators, this method is called to produce one.

createMessageId

Creates a message-id for this message. This method will be run when a new message is created, or a message is discovered without the message-id header field. Message-ids are required for detection of message-threads.

fileLocation

See Mail::Message::Head::fileLocation()

load

See Mail::Message::Head::load()

messagIdPrefix [STRING]

Sets/returns the message-id start. The rest of the message-id is an integer which is derived from the current time and the local host. See createMessageId().

moveLocation DISTANCE

See Mail::Message::Head::moveLocation()

orderedFields

See Mail::Message::Head::orderedFields()

read PARSER

See Mail::Message::Head::read()

setNoRealize FIELD

See Mail::Message::Head::setNoRealize()

Logging and Tracing

defaultTrace [LEVEL, [LEVEL]

See Mail::Reporter::defaultTrace()

errors

See Mail::Reporter::errors()

log [LEVEL [,STRINGS]]

See Mail::Reporter::log()

report [LEVEL]

See Mail::Reporter::report()

reportAll [LEVEL]

See Mail::Reporter::reportAll()

trace [LEVEL]

See Mail::Reporter::trace()

warnings

See Mail::Reporter::warnings()

Other Methods

AUTOLOAD

See Mail::Reporter::AUTOLOAD()

DESTROY

See Mail::Reporter::DESTROY()

inGlobalDestruction

See Mail::Reporter::inGlobalDestruction()

logPriority LEVEL

See Mail::Reporter::logPriority()

logSettings

See Mail::Reporter::logSettings()

notImplemented

See Mail::Reporter::notImplemented()

SEE ALSO

A good start to read is Mail::Box-Overview. More documentation and a mailinglist are available from the project's website at http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/.

AUTHOR

Written by Mark Overmeer (mark@overmeer.net) with the help of many. See the ChangeLog for details.

VERSION

This code is beta, version 2.037.

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