POP access in PHP

[johnjames]

Hi!

My problem is simple. I want to check for new emails (e.g. any gmail account)through PHP using POP access.

I have found one such class for POP access by Manuel Lemos (http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/2.html)

However, the above class (pop3.php) doesn't provide a method to check for new emails. It does provide a method to retrieve a message.

Can someone please help me?

Thanks,
John

[Purple]

Hi johnjames and welcome to TSDN,

can you post the function from the class which you are using to read the mail from the queue..

Purple

[johnjames]

Thanks Purple!

I am using the function: RetrieveMessage to retrieve messages. However, I don't know whether the message is new or old.

John

[Purple]

Hi,

can you post the RetrieveMessage function from the class into this thread so we can see how it is doing it

Purple

[johnjames]

here it is:

    /* RetrieveMessage method - the $message argument indicates the number of
     a message to be listed.  Pass a reference variables that will hold the
     arrays of the $header and $body lines.  The $lines argument tells how
     many lines of the message are to be retrieved.  Pass a negative number
     if you want to retrieve the whole message. */
 
    Function RetrieveMessage($message,&$headers,&$body,$lines)
    {
        if($this->state!="TRANSACTION")
            return($this->SetError("connection is not in TRANSACTION state"));
        if($lines<0)
        {
            $command="RETR";
            $arguments="$message";
        }
        else
        {
            $command="TOP";
            $arguments="$message $lines";
        }
        if($this->PutLine("$command $arguments")==0)
            return($this->SetError("Could not send the $command command"));
        $response=$this->GetLine();
        if(GetType($response)!="string")
            return($this->SetError("Could not get message retrieval command response"));
        if($this->Tokenize($response," ")!="+OK")
            return($this->SetError("Could not retrieve the message: ".$this->Tokenize("\r\n")));
        for($headers=$body=array(),$line=0;;)
        {
            $response=$this->GetLine();
            if(GetType($response)!="string")
                return($this->SetError("Could not retrieve the message"));
            switch($response)
            {
                case ".":
                    return("");
                case "":
                    break 2;
                default:
                    if(substr($response,0,1)==".")
                        $response=substr($response,1,strlen($response)-1);
                    break;
            }
            if($this->join_continuation_header_lines
            && $line>0
            && ($response[0]=="\t"
            || $response[0]==" "))
                $headers[$line-1].=$response;
            else
            {
                $headers[$line]=$response;
                $line++;
            }
        }
        for($line=0;;$line++)
        {
            $response=$this->GetLine();
            if(GetType($response)!="string")
                return($this->SetError("Could not retrieve the message"));
            switch($response)
            {
                case ".":
                    return("");
                default:
                    if(substr($response,0,1)==".")
                        $response=substr($response,1,strlen($response)-1);
                    break;
            }
            $body[$line]=$response;
        }
        return("");
    }
 
 

[Purple]

Hi,

there is not enough in there for me to help - I am going to download the class and take a look

Purple

[johnjames]

Thanks Purple! Waiting for your assessment of the class...

On the other note, are there any other classes available that have the ability to distinguish between a new email message and an old email message?

John

[Purple]

Hi johnjames,

Using a POP3 connection to the mail server the mail returned does not pass back any detail other than the message id and the message body - take a look at theRFC if you want all of the details..

Your choices are to maintain a list of message ids and message status on the receiving server or look for a class based around IMAP which does support extended attributes.

Hope that helps some :)

Purple

[Purple]

Hi johnjames,

take a look at this class

This obviously comes with the health warning - I haven't tested it but on a quick scan of the code the appear to do what you need and more...

Hope that helps

Regards Purple

[johnjames]

Thanks Purple!

Looks like this class (pop3.php) is not enough to serve the purpose. Pardon me for my ignorance but my limited knowledge of PHP does not provide me with the required comprehension power to decode your message. But atleast let me try.

Are you suggesting that there is a way to know the message status of the message through the pop3.php class? How?

Second, are you suggesting that POP3 is not the best way to check if there is a new email message in the mailbox? And IMAP based class will work best. Do you have any suggestions for these types of class?

Thanks,
John