Perl

Fetch a Text IMAP Attachment as a String

Demonstrates the Chilkat Imap.FetchAttachmentString method, which returns one text attachment decoded to a string. The first argument is the Email, the second is the zero-based attachment index, and the third is the charset used to decode the bytes. This example returns the first attachment as a UTF-8 string.

Background: This is the convenient form when you simply want a small text attachment's content inline as a string. Only use it for attachments known to be text; decoding binary content through a charset can alter or corrupt the bytes. For binary data use FetchAttachmentBd, and for large text a StringBuilder (via FetchAttachmentSb) avoids an extra copy.

Chilkat Perl Downloads

Download Chilkat for Perl

Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# Demonstrates the Imap.FetchAttachmentString method, which downloads one text attachment and
# returns it decoded to a string.  The 1st argument is the Email, the 2nd is the zero-based
# attachment index, and the 3rd is the charset used to decode the bytes.
#
# 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) {
    # FetchAttachmentString returns a string, so assign it to a string variable.
    my $attachText = $imap->FetchAttachmentString($email, 0, 'utf-8');
    if (!$imap->LastMethodSuccess) {
        print $imap->LastErrorText, "\n";
        exit;
    }

    print $attachText, "\n";
}

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