server side script to automatically extract data from new email.

[tgmcnaughton]

I'm brand new to server-side scripting. I don't even know if javascript can do this.

I would like a script running on my server to periodically login to and check my email account and each time it finds a new message with a particular identifying subjectline, it should extract the body of the message into a text variable and append it to an existing file already on the server.

I can handle the parsing and the appending, but I don't know how to have the server script automatically check and extract data from an email.

If javascript isn't the right tool for this then what is?

Thanks,
Tim

[acoder]

Welcome to TSDN!

You can't do this with Javascript. You may be able to do it with a server-side language, but I'm not sure. Which server-side language are you using?

[tgmcnaughton]

Thanks for the reply.
Let me explain my goals more explicitly. I have a javascript running on a page hosted by googlepages at:
http://tgmcnaughton.googlepages.com/map2.htm
It uses the google map api to draw a map and plot a marker at a particular latitude and longitude.

I have a GPS device which sends emails to my gmail account containing in the body a string of the form A3402.40611712.29122514400 which is the current location of the device.
I want to have the script periodically check for new messages from the sender: [e-mail], extract the string from the body and break it into the latitude (34.02406) and the longitude (-117.12291) and a timestamp (22:51:44) and assign the variables lat and lon to be the new values to redraw the map and marker. I can do the parsing and variable assignment; I need help with the method of accessing the email account.

Does this constitute server-side scripting? If JavaScript cannot do this, then what language would I use?
Thanks very much,
Tim