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Updated: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
 
 

Net::POP3 (3)

Name

Net::POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3 Client class (RFC1939)

Synopsis

use Net::POP3;

# Constructors
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host');
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host', Timeout => 60);
$pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host', SSL => 1, Timeout => 60);

if ($pop->login($username, $password) > 0) {
my $msgnums = $pop->list; # hashref of msgnum => size
foreach my $msgnum (keys %$msgnums) {
my $msg = $pop->get($msgnum);
print @$msg;
$pop->delete($msgnum);
}
}

$pop->quit;

Description

Perl Programmers Reference Guide                                  Net::POP3(3)



NAME
       Net::POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3 Client class (RFC1939)

SYNOPSIS
           use Net::POP3;

           # Constructors
           $pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host');
           $pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host', Timeout => 60);
           $pop = Net::POP3->new('pop3host', SSL => 1, Timeout => 60);

           if ($pop->login($username, $password) > 0) {
             my $msgnums = $pop->list; # hashref of msgnum => size
             foreach my $msgnum (keys %$msgnums) {
               my $msg = $pop->get($msgnum);
               print @$msg;
               $pop->delete($msgnum);
             }
           }

           $pop->quit;

DESCRIPTION
       This module implements a client interface to the POP3 protocol,
       enabling a perl5 application to talk to POP3 servers. This
       documentation assumes that you are familiar with the POP3 protocol
       described in RFC1939.  With IO::Socket::SSL installed it also provides
       support for implicit and explicit TLS encryption, i.e. POP3S or
       POP3+STARTTLS.

       A new Net::POP3 object must be created with the new method. Once this
       has been done, all POP3 commands are accessed via method calls on the
       object.

       The Net::POP3 class is a subclass of Net::Cmd and (depending on
       avaibility) of IO::Socket::IP, IO::Socket::INET6 or IO::Socket::INET.

CONSTRUCTOR
       new ( [ HOST ] [, OPTIONS ] )
           This is the constructor for a new Net::POP3 object. "HOST" is the
           name of the remote host to which an POP3 connection is required.

           "HOST" is optional. If "HOST" is not given then it may instead be
           passed as the "Host" option described below. If neither is given
           then the "POP3_Hosts" specified in "Net::Config" will be used.

           "OPTIONS" are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value
           pairs.  Possible options are:

           Host - POP3 host to connect to. It may be a single scalar, as
           defined for the "PeerAddr" option in IO::Socket::INET, or a
           reference to an array with hosts to try in turn. The "host" method
           will return the value which was used to connect to the host.

           Port - port to connect to.  Default - 110 for plain POP3 and 995
           for POP3s (direct SSL).

           SSL - If the connection should be done from start with SSL,
           contrary to later upgrade with "starttls".  You can use SSL
           arguments as documented in IO::Socket::SSL, but it will usually use
           the right arguments already.

           LocalAddr and LocalPort - These parameters are passed directly to
           IO::Socket to allow binding the socket to a specific local address
           and port.  For compatibility with older versions ResvPort can be
           used instead of LocalPort.

           Domain - This parameter is passed directly to IO::Socket and makes
           it possible to enforce IPv4 connections even if IO::Socket::IP is
           used as super class. Alternatively Family can be used.

           Timeout - Maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a response from the
           POP3 server (default: 120)

           Debug - Enable debugging information

METHODS
       Unless otherwise stated all methods return either a true or false
       value, with true meaning that the operation was a success. When a
       method states that it returns a value, failure will be returned as
       undef or an empty list.

       "Net::POP3" inherits from "Net::Cmd" so methods defined in "Net::Cmd"
       may be used to send commands to the remote POP3 server in addition to
       the methods documented here.

       host ()
           Returns the value used by the constructor, and passed to
           IO::Socket::INET, to connect to the host.

       auth ( USERNAME, PASSWORD )
           Attempt SASL authentication.

       user ( USER )
           Send the USER command.

       pass ( PASS )
           Send the PASS command. Returns the number of messages in the
           mailbox.

       login ( [ USER [, PASS ]] )
           Send both the USER and PASS commands. If "PASS" is not given the
           "Net::POP3" uses "Net::Netrc" to lookup the password using the host
           and username. If the username is not specified then the current
           user name will be used.

           Returns the number of messages in the mailbox. However if there are
           no messages on the server the string "0E0" will be returned. This
           is will give a true value in a boolean context, but zero in a
           numeric context.

           If there was an error authenticating the user then undef will be
           returned.

       starttls ( SSLARGS )
           Upgrade existing plain connection to SSL.  You can use SSL
           arguments as documented in IO::Socket::SSL, but it will usually use
           the right arguments already.

       apop ( [ USER [, PASS ]] )
           Authenticate with the server identifying as "USER" with password
           "PASS".  Similar to "login", but the password is not sent in clear
           text.

           To use this method you must have the Digest::MD5 or the MD5 module
           installed, otherwise this method will return undef.

       banner ()
           Return the sever's connection banner

       capa ()
           Return a reference to a hash of the capabilities of the server.
           APOP is added as a pseudo capability.  Note that I've been unable
           to find a list of the standard capability values, and some appear
           to be multi-word and some are not.  We make an attempt at
           intelligently parsing them, but it may not be correct.

       capabilities ()
           Just like capa, but only uses a cache from the last time we asked
           the server, so as to avoid asking more than once.

       top ( MSGNUM [, NUMLINES ] )
           Get the header and the first "NUMLINES" of the body for the message
           "MSGNUM". Returns a reference to an array which contains the lines
           of text read from the server.

       list ( [ MSGNUM ] )
           If called with an argument the "list" returns the size of the
           message in octets.

           If called without arguments a reference to a hash is returned. The
           keys will be the "MSGNUM"'s of all undeleted messages and the
           values will be their size in octets.

       get ( MSGNUM [, FH ] )
           Get the message "MSGNUM" from the remote mailbox. If "FH" is not
           given then get returns a reference to an array which contains the
           lines of text read from the server. If "FH" is given then the lines
           returned from the server are printed to the filehandle "FH".

       getfh ( MSGNUM )
           As per get(), but returns a tied filehandle.  Reading from this
           filehandle returns the requested message.  The filehandle will
           return EOF at the end of the message and should not be reused.

       last ()
           Returns the highest "MSGNUM" of all the messages accessed.

       popstat ()
           Returns a list of two elements. These are the number of undeleted
           elements and the size of the mbox in octets.

       ping ( USER )
           Returns a list of two elements. These are the number of new
           messages and the total number of messages for "USER".

       uidl ( [ MSGNUM ] )
           Returns a unique identifier for "MSGNUM" if given. If "MSGNUM" is
           not given "uidl" returns a reference to a hash where the keys are
           the message numbers and the values are the unique identifiers.

       delete ( MSGNUM )
           Mark message "MSGNUM" to be deleted from the remote mailbox. All
           messages that are marked to be deleted will be removed from the
           remote mailbox when the server connection closed.

       reset ()
           Reset the status of the remote POP3 server. This includes resetting
           the status of all messages to not be deleted.

       quit ()
           Quit and close the connection to the remote POP3 server. Any
           messages marked as deleted will be deleted from the remote mailbox.

       can_inet6 ()
           Returns whether we can use IPv6.

       can_ssl ()
           Returns whether we can use SSL.


ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +---------------+-----------------------+
       |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |   ATTRIBUTE VALUE     |
       +---------------+-----------------------+
       |Availability   | runtime/perl-532      |
       +---------------+-----------------------+
       |Stability      | Pass-through volatile |
       +---------------+-----------------------+

NOTES
       If a "Net::POP3" object goes out of scope before "quit" method is
       called then the "reset" method will called before the connection is
       closed. This means that any messages marked to be deleted will not be.

       Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
       be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
       code-downloads.html.

       This software was built from source available at
       https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland.  The original community
       source was downloaded from
       http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.32.0.tar.gz.

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at https://www.perl.org/.

SEE ALSO
       Net::Netrc, Net::Cmd, IO::Socket::SSL

AUTHOR
       Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>.

       Steve Hay <shay@cpan.org> is now maintaining libnet as of version
       1.22_02.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Graham Barr.  All rights reserved.

       Copyright (C) 2013-2016 Steve Hay.  All rights reserved.

LICENCE
       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl itself, i.e. under the terms of either the
       GNU General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the
       LICENCE file.




perl v5.32.0                      2020-06-14                      Net::POP3(3)