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B4X

Fetch a Text IMAP Attachment into a StringBuilder

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Demonstrates the Chilkat Imap.FetchAttachmentSb method, which decodes one text attachment into a StringBuilder. The first argument is the Email, the second is the zero-based attachment index, the third is the charset used to decode the bytes, and the fourth is the StringBuilder, which is cleared first. This example decodes the first attachment as UTF-8.

Background: For text attachments — a CSV, a .txt, an XML file — decoding straight to characters saves a manual charset step. The charset argument names the encoding of the attachment bytes (for example utf-8 or iso-8859-1). For binary attachments, use FetchAttachmentBd instead, since forcing binary through a text decoder can corrupt it.

Chilkat B4X Downloads

B4X
Dim success As Boolean = False

'  Demonstrates the Imap.FetchAttachmentSb method, which downloads one text attachment and
'  decodes it into a StringBuilder.  The 1st argument is the Email, the 2nd is the zero-based
'  attachment index, the 3rd is the charset used to decode, and the 4th is the StringBuilder
'  (cleared first).
'  
'  The message is fetched headers-only, then the attachment is downloaded on demand.

Dim imap As ChilkatImap
imap.Initialize("imap")

imap.Ssl = True
imap.Port = 993

success = imap.Connect("imap.example.com")
If success = False Then
    Log(imap.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If

success = imap.Login("user@example.com", "myPassword")
If success = False Then
    Log(imap.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


success = imap.SelectMailbox("Inbox")
If success = False Then
    Log(imap.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


'  Fetch only the message headers.  Attachment bodies are NOT downloaded, but the ckx-imap-*
'  metadata describing the attachments is present, so the attachment info methods still work.
Dim headersOnly As Boolean = True
Dim useUid As Boolean = False
Dim seqNum As Int = 1
Dim email As ChilkatEmail
email.Initialize
success = imap.FetchEmail(headersOnly, seqNum, useUid, email)
If success = False Then
    Log(imap.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


Dim numAttach As Int = imap.GetMailNumAttach(email)
If numAttach > 0 Then
    '  Download the first (text) attachment and decode it as UTF-8.  Use this only for text.
    Dim sb As ChilkatStringBuilder
    sb.Initialize
    success = imap.FetchAttachmentSb(email, 0, "utf-8", sb)
    If success = False Then
        Log(imap.LastErrorText)
        Return
    End If


    Dim attachText As String = sb.GetAsString
    Log(attachText)
End If


success = imap.Disconnect
If success = False Then
    Log(imap.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If