email processing script, need help trying to catch =0D and =5f encoded characters

[chris_fieldhouse]

Hi,

I have a script for processing emails,
The script finds email sent to a particular alias, grabs the body text
of the email and stores it into a database.

Problem is that certain character like '_' sometimes get stored as =5F,
and some email clients seem to add in =0D encoded characters.

I store the text in an Mysql database, and depending on the message
type I also set a flag to indicate whether its a plain text message, or
a MIME message with HTML coding.
Its alwasy the HTML messages that have the extra characters.

here is the code segment I modified from php.net to break down the
email structure and grab just the body text (not interested in storring
any attachments).

Any help would be appreciated.

# some borrowed code to get the email contents and attachments,
$MIME = FALSE;
$debug = "";

$struct = imap_fetchstructure($conn, $msg);
$parts = $struct->parts;
$i = 0;

# messages are either simple, only text, or complex with attachments.
if (!$parts) { /* Simple message, only 1 piece */
$content = imap_body($conn, $msg);
} else { /* Complicated message, multiple parts */

# complex message: multi-part - dump attachments (do not forward to
ANK).
$endwhile = false;
$stack = array(); /* Stack while parsing message */
$content = ""; /* Content of message */

while (!$endwhile) {
if (!$parts[$i]) {
if (count($stack) > 0) {
$parts = $stack[count($stack)-1]["p"];
$i = $stack[count($stack)-1]["i"] + 1;
array_pop($stack);
} else {
$endwhile = true;
}
}

if (!$endwhile) {
/* Create message part first (example '1.2.3') */
$partstring = "";
foreach ($stack as $s) {
$partstring .= ($s["i"]+1) . ".";
}
$partstring .= ($i+1);
$debug .= strtoupper($parts[$i]->subtype) . "\n";

# only grab the plain text message - everything else will get dumped!

if (strtoupper($parts[$i]->subtype) == "PLAIN" && $MIME ==
FALSE) { /* Message */
$content = imap_fetchbody($conn, $msg, $partstring);
}
if (strtoupper($parts[$i]->subtype) == "HTML" ) { /*
Message */
$content = imap_fetchbody($conn, $msg, $partstring);
$MIME = TRUE;
}
}

if ($parts[$i]->parts) {
$stack[] = array("p" => $parts, "i" => $i);
$parts = $parts[$i]->parts;
$i = 0;
} else {
$i++;
}
} /* while */
} /* complicated message */

[d]

<ch**************@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...

Hi,

I have a script for processing emails,
The script finds email sent to a particular alias, grabs the body text
of the email and stores it into a database.

Problem is that certain character like '_' sometimes get stored as =5F,
and some email clients seem to add in =0D encoded characters.

[snippy snip snip]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoted-printable

It's a type of MIME encoding called "quoted printable". Read up about it -
it's really quite simple to encode/decode.

dave

[chris_fieldhouse]

Ah,

So I should do this check
if (strtoupper($parts[$i]->encoding) == "QUOTED-PRINTABLE")
and if true, then use
imap_qprint function to convert it to 8-Bit.

Does that seem like a reasonable approach?

Thanks for your help.

[Mike Scougall]

<ch**************@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...

Hi,

I have a script for processing emails,
The script finds email sent to a particular alias, grabs the body text
of the email and stores it into a database.

Problem is that certain character like '_' sometimes get stored as =5F,
and some email clients seem to add in =0D encoded characters.

I store the text in an Mysql database, and depending on the message
type I also set a flag to indicate whether its a plain text message, or
a MIME message with HTML coding.
Its alwasy the HTML messages that have the extra characters.

here is the code segment I modified from php.net to break down the
email structure and grab just the body text (not interested in storring
any attachments).

Any help would be appreciated.

You could try using addslashes($content) just before writing the string to
the DB. Use stripslashes() when you pull the string back out.

There are also strip_tags() and htmlspecialchars() functions that strip out
or convert HTML and PHP tags. You might find one of those useful.

HTH

------------------------------------
Mike S
Copywriting for the IT Professional
www.redmaplesoftware.com

[chris_fieldhouse]

I currently do the addslashes before saving to the database.

Doing a simple echo of the $contents in the php script right after the
imap_fetchbody shows me that the Quoted-Printable are already present,
so it now becomes a problem of recognising that they are in there and
converting them accordingly.

Chris.

[chris_fieldhouse]

Dave,

Just putting this code in does the trick:
if (strtoupper($parts[$i]->encoding) == "4")
$content = imap_qprint($content);

All the Quoted Printable characters are converted.

Thanks.

Chris

[d]

<ch**************@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...

Dave,

Just putting this code in does the trick:
if (strtoupper($parts[$i]->encoding) == "4")
$content = imap_qprint($content);

All the Quoted Printable characters are converted.

Thanks.

Chris

Nice!

dave