Lua

Get an Attachment as a Text String

Demonstrates the Chilkat Email.GetAttachmentString method, which returns the Nth attachment's data as text. The first argument is the zero-based attachment index and the second is the charset used to interpret the attachment bytes. This example reads a text attachment as utf-8.

Background: Attachments are stored as bytes, so turning one back into a string requires knowing its charset — the rule for mapping bytes to characters. Supplying the correct charset (often utf-8) yields readable text; the wrong one produces garbled characters. This method is meant for text attachments such as .txt, .csv, or .xml; binary attachments should be handled as raw data instead.

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Lua

local chilkat = require("chilkat")

-- Demonstrates the GetAttachmentString method, which returns the Nth attachment's data as
-- text.  The first argument is the zero-based attachment index and the second is the charset used to interpret
-- the attachment bytes.

local email = chilkat.Email.new()
email.subject = "Attachment as text"

email:add_string_attachment("notes.txt", "These are the notes stored in the attachment.")

-- Get the first attachment (index 0) as text, interpreting the bytes as utf-8.
local content = email:get_attachment_string(0, "utf-8")
print("Attachment 0 text: " .. content)