NAME

Mail::Transport - base class for message exchange

CLASS INHERITANCE

 Mail::Transport
   is a Mail::Reporter

 Mail::Transport is extended by
   Mail::Transport::Receive
   Mail::Transport::Send

SYNOPSIS

 my $message = Mail::Message->new(...);

 # Some extensions implement sending:
 $message->send;
 $message->send(via => 'sendmail');

 my $sender = Mail::Transport::SMTP->new(...);
 $sender->send($message);

 # Some extensions implement receiving:
 my $receiver = Mail::Transport::POP3->new(...);
 $message = $receiver->receive;

DESCRIPTION

Objects which extend Mail::Transport implement sending and/or receiving of messages, using various protocols.

Mail::Transport::Send extends this class, and offers general functionality for send protocols, like SMTP. Mail::Transport::Receive also extends this class, and offers receive method. Some transport protocols will implement both sending and receiving.

METHODS

Initiation

new OPTIONS

(Class method)

 OPTION               DEFAULT
 executable           C<undef>
 hostname             'localhost'
 interval             30
 log                  'WARNINGS'
 password             undef
 port                 undef
 proxy                undef
 retry                <false>
 timeout              120
 trace                'WARNINGS'
 username             undef
 via                  'sendmail'

executable => FILENAME

If you specify an executable, the module does not need to search the system directories to figure-out where the client lives. Using this decreases the flexible usage of your program: moving your program to other systems may involve changing the path to the executable, which otherwise would work auto-detect and unmodified.

hostname => HOSTNAME|ARRAY-OF-HOSTNAMES

The host on which the server runs. Some protocols accept an array of alternatives for this option.

interval => SECONDS

The time between tries to contact the remote server for sending or receiving a message in SECONDS. This number must be larger than 0.

log => LEVEL

See Mail::Reporter::new(log)

password => STRING

Some protocols require a password to be given, usually in combination with a password.

port => INTEGER

The port number behind which the service is hiding on the remote server.

proxy => PATH

The name of the proxy software (the mail handler). This must be the name (preferable the absolute path) of your mail delivery software.

retry => NUMBER|undef

The number of retries before the sending will fail. If undef, the number of retries is unlimited.

timeout => SECONDS

SECONDS till time-out while establishing the connection to a remote server.

trace => LEVEL

See Mail::Reporter::new(trace)

username => STRING

Some protocols require a user to login.

via => CLASS|NAME

Which CLASS (extending Mail::Transport) will transport the data. Some predefined NAMEs avoid long class names: mail and mailx are handled by the Mail::Transport::Mailx module, sendmail and postfix belong to ::Sendmail, and smtp is implemented in ::SMTP. The pop or pop3 protocol implementation can be found in ::POP3.

Server Connection

findBinary NAME [, DIRECTORIES]

Look for a binary with the specified NAME in the directories which are defined to be safe. The list of standard directories is followed by the optional DIRECTORIES. The full pathname is returned.

You may specify a proxy option, which specifies the absolute name of the binary to be used.

remoteHost

Returns the hostname, port number, username and password to be used to establish the connection to the server for sending or receiving mail.

retry

Returns the retry interval, retry count, and timeout for the connection.

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 2.038.

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.