Mail::Field man page on YellowDog

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   18644 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
YellowDog logo
[printable version]

Mail::Field(3)	      User Contributed Perl Documentation	Mail::Field(3)

NAME
       Mail::Field - Base class for manipulation of mail header fields

INHERITANCE
	Mail::Field is extended by
	  Mail::Field::AddrList
	  Mail::Field::Date
	  Mail::Field::Generic

SYNOPSIS
	use Mail::Field;

	my $field = Mail::Field->new('Subject', 'some subject text');
	my $field = Mail::Field->new(Subject => 'some subject text');
	print $field->tag,": ",$field->stringify,"\n";

	my $field = Mail::Field->subject('some subject text');

DESCRIPTION
       "Mail::Field" creates and manipulates fields in MIME headers, collected
       within a Mail::Header object.  Different field types have their own
       sub-class (extension), defining additional useful accessors to the
       field content.

       People are invited to merge their implementation to special fields into
       MailTools, to maintain a consistent set of packages and documentation.

METHODS
       Constructors

       Mail::Field (and it's sub-classes) define several methods which return
       new objects. These can all be categorized as constructor.

       Mail::Field->combine(FIELDS)

	   Take a LIST of "Mail::Field" objects (which should all be of the
	   same sub-class) and create a new object in that same class.

       Mail::Field->extract(TAG, HEAD [, INDEX ])

	   Takes as arguments the tag name, a "Mail::Head" object and option‐
	   ally an index.

	   If the index argument is given then "extract" will retrieve the
	   given tag from the "Mail::Head" object and create a new
	   "Mail::Field" based object.	undef will be returned in the field
	   does not exist.

	   If the index argument is not given the the result depends on the
	   context in which "extract" is called. If called in a scalar context
	   the result will be as if "extract" was called with an index value
	   of zero. If called in an array context then all tags will be
	   retrieved and a list of "Mail::Field" objects will be returned.

       Mail::Field->new(TAG [, STRING ⎪ OPTIONS])

	   Create an object in the class which defines the field specified by
	   the TAG argument.

       "Fake" constructors

       $obj->create(OPTIONS)

	   This constructor is used internally with preprocessed field infor‐
	   mation.  When called on an existing object, its original content
	   will get replaced.

       $obj->parse

	   Parse a field line.

       Accessors

       $obj->set(OPTIONS)

	   Change the settings (the content, but then smart) of this field.

       $obj->stringify

	   Returns the field as a string.

       $obj->tag

       Mail::Field->tag

	   Return the tag (in the correct case) for this item.	Well, actually
	   any casing is OK, because the field tags are treated case-insenti‐
	   tive; however people have some preferences.

       Smart accessors

       $obj->text([STRING])

	   Without arguments, the field is returned as stringify() does.  Oth‐
	   erwise, the STRING is parsed with parse() to replace the object's
	   content.

	   It is more clear to call either stringify() or parse() directly,
	   because this method does not add additional processing.

DETAILS
       SUB-CLASS PACKAGE NAMES

       All sub-classes should be called Mail::Field::name where name is
       derived from the tag using these rules.

       ·   Consider a tag as being made up of elements separated by '-'

       ·   Convert all characters to lowercase except the first in each ele‐
	   ment, which should be uppercase.

       ·   name is then created from these elements by using the first N char‐
	   acters from each element.

       ·   N is calculated by using the formula :-

	       int((7 + #elements) / #elements)

       ·   name is then limited to a maximum of 8 characters, keeping the
	   first 8 characters.

       For an example of this take a look at the definition of the
       "_header_pkg_name()" subroutine in "Mail::Field"

DIAGNOSTICS
       Error: Undefined subroutine <method> called

	   Mail::Field objects use autoloading to compile new functionality.
	   Apparently, the mehod called is not implemented for the specific
	   class of the field object.

SEE ALSO
       This module is part of the MailTools distribution, http://perl.over‐
       meer.net/mailtools/.

AUTHORS
       The MailTools bundle was developed by Graham Barr.  Later, Mark Over‐
       meer took over maintenance without commitment to further development.

       Mail::Cap by Gisle Aas <aas@oslonett.no>.  Mail::Field::AddrList by
       Peter Orbaek <poe@cit.dk>.  Mail::Mailer and Mail::Send by Tim Bunce
       <Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk>.  For other contributors see ChangeLog.

LICENSE
       Copyrights 1995-2000 Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com> and 2001-2007 Mark
       Overmeer <perl@overmeer.net>.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl itself.  See
       http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

perl v5.8.8			  2008-07-29			Mail::Field(3)
[top]

List of man pages available for YellowDog

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net