Perl

Fetch an IMAP Attachment into a BinData

Demonstrates the Chilkat Imap.FetchAttachmentBd method, which stores one attachment's bytes in a BinData object. The first argument is the Email, the second is the zero-based attachment index, and the third is the BinData, which is cleared before the operation. This example fetches the first attachment and prints its byte count.

Background: A BinData holds raw bytes, so it works for any attachment type — image, PDF, zip, and so on. From there you can save it, hash it, or hand it to another API expecting a byte buffer, all without touching the filesystem. Use the string/StringBuilder variants only when the attachment is known to be text.

Chilkat Perl Downloads

Download Chilkat for Perl

Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# Demonstrates the Imap.FetchAttachmentBd method, which downloads one attachment's bytes into
# a BinData object.  The 1st argument is the Email, the 2nd is the zero-based attachment
# index, and the 3rd is the BinData (which is cleared first).
#
# The message is fetched headers-only, then the attachment is downloaded on demand.

my $imap = Chilkat2::Imap->new;

$imap->Ssl(1);
$imap->Port(993);

my $success = $imap->Connect('imap.example.com');
if (!$success) {
    print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $imap->Login('user@example.com', 'myPassword');
if (!$success) {
    print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $imap->SelectMailbox('Inbox');
if (!$success) {
    print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# 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.
my $headersOnly = 1;
my $useUid = 0;
my $seqNum = 1;
my $email = Chilkat2::Email->new;
$success = $imap->FetchEmail($headersOnly, $seqNum, $useUid, $email);
if (!$success) {
    print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

my $numAttach = $imap->GetMailNumAttach($email);
if ($numAttach > 0) {
    # Download just the first attachment's bytes from the server into a BinData.
    my $bd = Chilkat2::BinData->new;
    $success = $imap->FetchAttachmentBd($email, 0, $bd);
    if (!$success) {
        print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
        exit;
    }

    print 'Attachment size: ', $bd->NumBytes, " bytes\n";
}

$success = $imap->Disconnect();
if (!$success) {
    print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}