message/rfc822 Attached Email Messages

Ruby source code example to extract an attached message from an email. It is often the case that when an email is forwarded, the original email is attached as a message/rfc822 sub-part contained within an outer multipart/mixed MIME type. The Chilkat Ruby email module provides methods for accessing attached messages.

Download Ruby Programming Example Scripts

# file: AttachedEmail.rb

# Forwarded emails contain the original email(s) in message/rfc822 sub-parts.
# The Chilkat Email API provides a method for extracting an attached message
# and returning it as an email object.  It is possible for an email to contain
# an attached message, which in turn contains another, etc.   There is no limitation
# on the number of possible recursive nesting levels.

require 'chilkat'

# Create an instance of the mailman object for reading POP3 email.
mailman = Chilkat::CkMailMan.new()
mailman.UnlockComponent("anything for 30-day trial")

# Load an email with an attached message from a .eml file.
email = Chilkat::CkEmail.new()
success = email.LoadEml("forwardedEmail.eml")
if not success
	email.SaveLastError("lastError.txt");
else
	numAttachedMsgs = email.get_NumAttachedMessages()
	
	subject = Chilkat::CkString.new()
	fromAddr = Chilkat::CkString.new()
	
	for i in 0..(numAttachedMsgs-1)
		attachedEmail = email.GetAttachedMessage(i)
		
		# Do a few things with the attached email, for demonstration purposes.
		attachedEmail.SaveEml("attachedEmail_" + i.to_s() + ".eml")
		
		attachedEmail.get_Subject(subject)
		attachedEmail.get_FromAddress(fromAddr)
		
		print "Attached Email: " + i.to_s() + "\n"
		print "    Subject: " + subject.getUtf8() + "\n"
		print "    From: " + fromAddr.getUtf8() + "\n\n"
	end	
end