incoming emails

[Rod]

Hi,

sometimes, when an action is done on my web site, i send an email to another
application.
This application send me automatically a confirmation by email with an
auto-generated number.

How can i automatically get the email to parse it and save this number in a
table?

Do I need a specific mail server that starts a task when it receives an
email?
Suppose I install this mail server, how can I communicate the email content
to a php script (so it can parse the email and save the number in a
table)???

Maybe I can't do that with and need to use a perl script?? So the mail
server run the perl script with the email content??

Thanks you for your help because i am lost!

Rodolphe.

[Andy Jeffries]

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 12:34:42 +0200, Rod hammered his head on the keyboard
and somehow managed to type:

This application send me automatically a confirmation by email with an
auto-generated number.

How can i automatically get the email to parse it and save this number in a
table?

Do I need a specific mail server that starts a task when it receives an
email?
Most mail servers (under Linux at least) can pass an email to a script.
Suppose I install this mail server, how can I communicate the email
content to a php script (so it can parse the email and save the number
in a table)???
If you have the command line binary installed just use something like:

incomingaccount | php /home/someone/php-email.php

and send email to in************* @yourdomain.com
Maybe I can't do that with and need to use a perl script?? So the mail
server run the perl script with the email content??
The same applies, just put the perl script in the mail server setting file
(e.g. /etc/aliases for sendmail or exim).

Note Sendmail can be very tricky in where it will run processes from.
Thanks you for your help because i am lost!

You may also be able to do this with a .redirect file in the home dir of a
user who reads this account.
Or finally, you could put these emails in to a POP3 account and have a
script run every X minutes from a cron job that downloads the POP3 mail
(using the IMAP functions in PHP).

Cheers,
Andy

[Shawn Wilson]

Rod wrote:

sometimes, when an action is done on my web site, i send an email to another
application.
This application send me automatically a confirmation by email with an
auto-generated number.

How can i automatically get the email to parse it and save this number in a
table?

Do I need a specific mail server that starts a task when it receives an
email?
Suppose I install this mail server, how can I communicate the email content
to a php script (so it can parse the email and save the number in a
table)???

I'm just playing with this for the first time. The imap functions are working
well for me so far. I plan to run a cron job every hour or so to check for and
process new mail.

http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/ref.imap.php

Shawn
--
Shawn Wilson
sh***@glassgian t.com
http://www.glassgiant.com

[Rod]

Hi all,

thanks you both for your answers.
i will have a look to your solutions.
I think I need time to understand, because i don't exactly know what is
POP3, IMAP etc etc.

Thanks you again

Rodolphe
"Shawn Wilson" <sh***@glassgia nt.com> wrote in message
news:3F******** *******@glassgi ant.com...

Rod wrote:

sometimes, when an action is done on my web site, i send an email to another application.
This application send me automatically a confirmation by email with an
auto-generated number.

How can i automatically get the email to parse it and save this number in a table?

Do I need a specific mail server that starts a task when it receives an
email?
Suppose I install this mail server, how can I communicate the email content to a php script (so it can parse the email and save the number in a
table)???
I'm just playing with this for the first time. The imap functions are

working well for me so far. I plan to run a cron job every hour or so to check for and process new mail.

http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/ref.imap.php

Shawn
--
Shawn Wilson
sh***@glassgian t.com
http://www.glassgiant.com

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID: <bm**********@h ome.itg.ti.com> from Rod
contained the following:

sometimes, when an action is done on my web site, i send an email to another
application.
This application send me automatically a confirmation by email with an
auto-generated number.

How can i automatically get the email to parse it and save this number in a
table?

Could PHP on the website not do it all?

--
Geoff Berrow
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/