Perl

Convert 8-bit MIME Parts to Base64

Demonstrates the Chilkat Mime.Convert8Bit method, which recursively converts every part whose Content-Transfer-Encoding is 8bit or binary to base64. It takes no arguments and is a void method.

Note: The file paths are relative to the application's current working directory. Absolute paths may also be used. Supply the paths appropriate to your own environment.

Background: The original SMTP standard only guaranteed 7-bit transport, and some legacy servers still reject or mangle raw 8-bit and binary content. Converting those parts to base64 — a 7-bit-safe encoding — makes the whole message safe to relay through such systems without loss. It walks the entire tree, so a multipart message with several offending parts is fixed in one call.

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Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

my $mime = Chilkat2::Mime->new;
my $success = $mime->LoadMimeFile('qa_data/message.eml');
if (!$success) {
    print $mime->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# Recursively convert every part whose Content-Transfer-Encoding is 8bit or binary to base64.
# This makes the MIME safe to transmit over channels that only support 7-bit text (such as some
# legacy SMTP servers).
$mime->Convert8Bit();

print "8bit/binary parts converted to base64.\n";
my $mimeText = $mime->GetMime();
if (!$mime->LastMethodSuccess) {
    print $mime->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print $mimeText, "\n";