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frame: A packet as assembled and transmitted over the physical layer of a network (e.g. Ethernet, Token Ring, etc.).

eZ components “Mail” to save the day


A few days ago I was asked to develop a simple script for a solidarity campaign. The idea is that people send their photos as attachements to some email. The script would download all images attached and insert a record for that in the database.

I got introduced to eZ components during my last visit to Norway to attend the eZ systems conference. I decided to give it a shot, and oh boy it’s just amazing, probably the cleanest and simplest API ever.

I managed to find the package “Mail”:

The components allows you construct Mail messages conforming to the RFCs. It has support for attachments, multipart messages and HTML mail. It also interfaces with SMTP to send the e-mail. Reading and parsing mail messages comes in version 1.1.

The package is well documented and includes many examples. Here’s the script I ended up writing (edited version):

  1. < ?php
  2. define( 'PHOTOS_DIR', 'email_photos/' );
  3. define( 'FILE_PARSED_MAILS', '.fpm' );
  4.  
  5. require_once 'Base/src/base.php';
  6. function __autoload( $className )
  7. {
  8. ezcBase::autoload( $className );
  9. }
  10.  
  11. //get the list of emails that we alread processed
  12. $parsedEmailsIds = array();
  13. $parsedEmailsIds = @unserialize( file_get_contents(FILE_PARSED_MAILS) );
  14.  
  15. if( 'array' != gettype($parsedEmailsIds) ){
  16. $parsedEmailsIds = array();
  17. }
  18.  
  19. $pop3 = new ezcMailPop3Transport( 'mail.example.org' );
  20. $pop3->authenticate( 'username', 'password' );
  21.  
  22. //get the list of emails from the server
  23. $severEmailsIds = $pop3->listUniqueIdentifiers();
  24. $emailsToFetch = array_diff($severEmailsIds, $parsedEmailsIds);
  25. if( !count($emailsToFetch) ){
  26. //no emails to get!
  27. exit;
  28. }
  29.  
  30. $set = $pop3->fetchAll(false, $emailsToFetch );
  31. $parser = new ezcMailParser();
  32. $parser->setTmpDir( 'tmp/' );
  33. $mails = $parser->parseMail( $set );
  34.  
  35. foreach ( $mails as $mail )
  36. {
  37.  
  38. //Get email parts
  39. foreach( $mail->body->getParts() as $part ){
  40. if( get_class($part) == 'ezcMailFile' ){
  41.  
  42. //get the destination file name after some cleanups
  43. $fileName = nameToSafe( basename($part->fileName) );
  44.  
  45. //the new destintation filename, this function makes sure we get a unique file name everytime
  46. $destFileName = PHOTOS_DIR . nameToSeq(PHOTOS_DIR,$fileName);
  47.  
  48. rename( $part->fileName, $destFileName );
  49.  
  50. }
  51.  
  52. //after we're done, we need to update the file that stores the list of parsed emails
  53. file_put_contents( FILE_PARSED_MAILS, serialize( $severEmailsIds ) );
  54.  
  55. ?>

I’m sure there’s a better way to get the new emails only, probably with var_export()

Note: The only problem I faced, which is VERY strange, is the ability to fetch a single email or list of emails. Surprisingly, the API didn’t provide such feature. I did an ugly hack to “Mail/transports/pop3/pop3_transport.php” to function fetchAll(), I should have created another function, but I was in a hurry. Here’s the modified version:

  1. /**
  2. * @throws ezcMailTransportException if the mail could not be retrieved.
  3. * @param bool $deleteFromServer
  4. * @param array $messages
  5. * @return ezcMailParserSet
  6. */
  7. public function fetchAll( $deleteFromServer = false, $messages = null )
  8. {
  9. if( !isset($messages) ){
  10. $message = $this->listMessages();
  11. }
  12. return new ezcMailPop3Set( $this->connection, array_keys( $messages ), $deleteFromServer );
  13. }

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This post was written by Ammar Ibrahim On Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 9:08 amand is filed under Code, Frameworks, PHP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “eZ components “Mail” to save the day”

  1. Derick Says:
    August 14th, 2006 at 9:40 am

    You can actually fetch a single email, but it seems that it is currently only implemented for the mbox transport. However, we are currently working on adding this method to the pop transport as well, and to add a new function to get a set of mail messages (similar to limit/offset).

  2. PHPDeveloper.org Says:
    August 14th, 2006 at 12:40 pm

    Jad Madi’s Blog: eZ components “Mail” to save the day…

    …

  3. SitePoint Blogs » UTF-8 Email in PHP with eZ Components Says:
    August 14th, 2006 at 2:07 pm

    [...] From browsing around the source (having been reminded by Jad Madi’s blog to take a look), the good news is it looks like eZ systems have this problem well solved. The ezcMail class, and related classes default to (assume) ASCII but you can explicitly tell it to use UTF-8 (note iconv is required) for subject, recipient, sender and body. In fact it’s a very impressive mail library all round, handling parsing as well as generating, multipart messages and all that. [...]

  4. Nerd Fish » Blog Archive » UTF-8 Email in PHP with eZ Components Says:
    August 15th, 2006 at 4:55 am

    [...] From browsing around the source (having been reminded by Jad Madi’s blog to take a look), the good news is it looks like eZ systems have this problem well solved. The ezcMail class, and related classes default to (assume) ASCII but you can explicitly tell it to use UTF-8 (note iconv is required) for subject, recipient, sender and body. In fact it’s a very impressive mail library all round, handling parsing as well as generating, multipart messages and all that. [...]

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