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B4X Requires Chilkat v11.0.0+

Processing a multipart/report Delivery Status Notification (Bounce Notification)

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This example discusses the format of Delivery Status Notification emails and how to process them.

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Dim success As Boolean = False

'  Here are the MIME structures, showing the content-type and nesting of the MIME parts of three sample
'  multipart/report DSN (Delivery Status Notification) emails.

'  This 1st sample includes a "text/rfc822-headers" MIME subpart. 

'  multipart/report
'      text/plain
'      message/delivery-status
'      text/rfc822-headers
'      message/rfc822

'  This 2nd sample lacks the text/rfc-headers part, but the "report type" information
'  is offered in both plain-text and HTML formats.

'  multipart/report
'      multipart/alternative
'          text/plain
'          text/html
'      message/delivery-status
'      message/rfc822

'  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'  A multipart/report MIME delivery status notification follows a specific format defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in RFC 3464, 
'  which outlines the "An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status Notifications" standard. The format consists of multiple parts within a 
'  multipart/report structure. Here's an overview of the main parts involved:
'  
'  The 1st sub-part under multipart/report is the body of the DSN to be displayed by the email client (such as Outlook).
'  It can be a simple text/plain body, or it can be multipart/alternative and offer a few alternative format, typically plain-text and HTML.
'  HTML is best for viewing a program such as Outlook. 
'  This part of the multipart/report is not structured for programmatic processing.  It's meant to be viewed by a human.

'  --------------------
'  The "message/delivery-status" part within a multipart/report MIME structure follows a specific format to provide details about the delivery status
'  of an email message.  Here's an overview of the format and the key components within the "message/delivery-status" part:
'  
'  (1) Content-Type and Reporting-UA:
'  The "message/delivery-status" part begins with the Content-Type header specifying "message/delivery-status". 
'  It may also include a Reporting-UA (Reporting User Agent) field that identifies the software or system generating the delivery status notification.
'  
'  For example:
'  
'  Content-Type: message/delivery-status
'  Reporting-UA: Example Mail System 1.0
'  
'  (2) Fields:
'  The "message/delivery-status" part contains a series of fields, each providing specific information about the delivery status. 
'  These fields are structured as key-value pairs.
'  
'  Common fields include:
'  
'      Final-Recipient: Specifies the recipient for whom the delivery status is being reported.
'      Action: Describes the action performed by the reporting system (e.g., failed, delivered, delayed, etc.).
'      Status: Indicates the status code or reason for the delivery attempt result.
'      Remote-MTA: Specifies the host or system that attempted the delivery.
'      Diagnostic-Code: Provides additional diagnostic information, such as error codes or explanations.
'  
'  For example:
'  
'  Final-Recipient: rfc822; john.doe@example.com
'  Action: failed
'  Status: 5.1.1
'  Remote-MTA: smtp.example.com
'  Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
'  
'  (3) Additional Fields:
'  Additional fields may be included in the "message/delivery-status" part to provide further information about the delivery attempt. 
'  These fields can vary depending on the implementation or specific needs of the system generating the delivery status notification.
'  For example:
'  
'  X-Spam-Flag: YES
'  X-Spam-Score: 7.2
'  
'  Note: The specific fields and their values within the "message/delivery-status" part can vary depending on the implementation
'  or the email server/application generating the delivery status notification. The structure described above represents the standard format
'  as defined in RFC 3464, but variations may exist in practice.

'  --------------------

'  The "text/rfc822-headers" MIME part, if included, contains the headers of the original email message
'  for which the delivery status notification is being generated. It provides a subset of the headers from the original message,
'  typically excluding the message body and attachments.
'  
'  The purpose of including the "text/rfc822-headers" part is to provide contextual information about the original message.
'  It allows the recipient to review the original headers, such as the subject, sender, recipients, date, and other relevant information,
'  in order to understand the context and details of the email message for which the delivery status notification is being generated.
'  
'  Note that the specific headers included in the "text/rfc822-headers" part can vary based on the implementation or requirements
'  of the system generating the delivery status notification.

'  --------------------

'  If the message/rfc822 part is present, it contains the full MIME of the email that was not delivered.
'  In Chilkat terminology, this is an attached message.

'  OK, let's write code to process a multipart/report email.

Dim email As ChilkatEmail
email.Initialize
success = email.LoadEml("qa_data/eml/deliveryStatus.eml")
'  success = email.LoadEml("qa_data/eml/sample_multipart_report.eml");
If success = False Then
    Log(email.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If


'  Verify this is a multipart/report email..
If email.IsMultipartReport = False Then
    Log("Not a multipart/report email.")
    Return
End If


'  Get the body that is to be displayed to a human in an email program (such as Outlook).
If email.HasPlainTextBody = True Then
    Log("Plain text body:")
    '  println email.GetPlainTextBody();
Else
    If email.HasHtmlBody = True Then
        '  Convert HTML to plain-text..
        Dim h2t As ChilkatHtmlToText
        h2t.Initialize
        Log("HTML body converted to plain-text:")
        Log(h2t.ToText(email.GetHtmlBody))
    Else
        Log("Has no plain-text or HTML body...")
    End If

End If

Log("---------------------------------")

'  Now get information from the message/delivery-status part (or the message/disposition-notification part)
Log("--- Delivery Status Information:")
Log("Status: " & email.GetDeliveryStatusInfo("Status"))
Log("Action: " & email.GetDeliveryStatusInfo("Action"))
Log("Reporting-MTA: " & email.GetDeliveryStatusInfo("Reporting-MTA"))

Dim jsonDsnInfo As ChilkatJsonObject
jsonDsnInfo.Initialize
email.GetDsnInfo(jsonDsnInfo)
jsonDsnInfo.EmitCompact = False
Log(jsonDsnInfo.Emit)

Log("---------------------------------")

'  If the multipart/report contains a text/rfc822-headers, it can be retrieved like this:
Dim headersText As String = email.GetNthTextPartOfType(0, "text/rfc822-headers", False, False)
If email.LastMethodSuccess = True Then
    Log("The text/rfc822-headers part exists..")
    Log("")
    Log(headersText)

    '  If you wish to process the headers, you can load them into a MIME object and use the Chilkat MIME functionality to examine the headers.
    Dim mime As ChilkatMime
    mime.Initialize
    mime.LoadMime(headersText)

    '  Do whatever you want.. 
    '  For example, look at the "To" header.
    Log("MIME To header:")
    Log(mime.GetHeaderField("To"))
End If


Log("---------------------------------")

'  Finally, if the original email was attached, you can load it into another Chilkat Email object instance and
'  do what you want with it..

If email.NumAttachedMessages > 0 Then
    '  Get the 1st attachment message (assume we don't have more than one attached message)
    Dim origEmail As ChilkatEmail
    origEmail.Initialize
    success = email.GetAttachedEmail(0, origEmail)
    If success = True Then
        Log("Attached message subject: " & origEmail.Subject)
        '  Do whatever else you want..
    End If

End If