1MIME::Parser(3)       User Contributed Perl Documentation      MIME::Parser(3)
2
3
4

NAME

6       MIME::Parser - experimental class for parsing MIME streams
7

SYNOPSIS

9       Before reading further, you should see MIME::Tools to make sure that
10       you understand where this module fits into the grand scheme of things.
11       Go on, do it now.  I'll wait.
12
13       Ready?  Ok...
14
15   Basic usage examples
16           ### Create a new parser object:
17           my $parser = new MIME::Parser;
18
19           ### Tell it where to put things:
20           $parser->output_under("/tmp");
21
22           ### Parse an input filehandle:
23           $entity = $parser->parse(\*STDIN);
24
25           ### Congratulations: you now have a (possibly multipart) MIME entity!
26           $entity->dump_skeleton;          # for debugging
27
28   Examples of input
29           ### Parse from filehandles:
30           $entity = $parser->parse(\*STDIN);
31           $entity = $parser->parse(IO::File->new("some command|");
32
33           ### Parse from any object that supports getline() and read():
34           $entity = $parser->parse($myHandle);
35
36           ### Parse an in-core MIME message:
37           $entity = $parser->parse_data($message);
38
39           ### Parse an MIME message in a file:
40           $entity = $parser->parse_open("/some/file.msg");
41
42           ### Parse an MIME message out of a pipeline:
43           $entity = $parser->parse_open("gunzip - < file.msg.gz |");
44
45           ### Parse already-split input (as "deliver" would give it to you):
46           $entity = $parser->parse_two("msg.head", "msg.body");
47
48   Examples of output control
49           ### Keep parsed message bodies in core (default outputs to disk):
50           $parser->output_to_core(1);
51
52           ### Output each message body to a one-per-message directory:
53           $parser->output_under("/tmp");
54
55           ### Output each message body to the same directory:
56           $parser->output_dir("/tmp");
57
58           ### Change how nameless message-component files are named:
59           $parser->output_prefix("msg");
60
61           ### Put temporary files somewhere else
62           $parser->tmp_dir("/var/tmp/mytmpdir");
63
64   Examples of error recovery
65           ### Normal mechanism:
66           eval { $entity = $parser->parse(\*STDIN) };
67           if ($@) {
68               $results  = $parser->results;
69               $decapitated = $parser->last_head;  ### get last top-level head
70           }
71
72           ### Ultra-tolerant mechanism:
73           $parser->ignore_errors(1);
74           $entity = eval { $parser->parse(\*STDIN) };
75           $error = ($@ || $parser->last_error);
76
77           ### Cleanup all files created by the parse:
78           eval { $entity = $parser->parse(\*STDIN) };
79           ...
80           $parser->filer->purge;
81
82   Examples of parser options
83           ### Automatically attempt to RFC 2047-decode the MIME headers?
84           $parser->decode_headers(1);             ### default is false
85
86           ### Parse contained "message/rfc822" objects as nested MIME streams?
87           $parser->extract_nested_messages(0);    ### default is true
88
89           ### Look for uuencode in "text" messages, and extract it?
90           $parser->extract_uuencode(1);           ### default is false
91
92           ### Should we forgive normally-fatal errors?
93           $parser->ignore_errors(0);              ### default is true
94
95   Miscellaneous examples
96           ### Convert a Mail::Internet object to a MIME::Entity:
97           my $data = join('', (@{$mail->header}, "\n", @{$mail->body}));
98           $entity = $parser->parse_data(\$data);
99

DESCRIPTION

101       You can inherit from this class to create your own subclasses that
102       parse MIME streams into MIME::Entity objects.
103

PUBLIC INTERFACE

105   Construction
106       new ARGS...
107           Class method.  Create a new parser object.  Once you do this, you
108           can then set up various parameters before doing the actual parsing.
109           For example:
110
111               my $parser = new MIME::Parser;
112               $parser->output_dir("/tmp");
113               $parser->output_prefix("msg1");
114               my $entity = $parser->parse(\*STDIN);
115
116           Any arguments are passed into "init()".  Don't override this in
117           your subclasses; override init() instead.
118
119       init ARGS...
120           Instance method.  Initiallize a new MIME::Parser object.  This is
121           automatically sent to a new object; you may want to override it.
122           If you override this, be sure to invoke the inherited method.
123
124       init_parse
125           Instance method.  Invoked automatically whenever one of the top-
126           level parse() methods is called, to reset the parser to a "ready"
127           state.
128
129   Altering how messages are parsed
130       decode_headers [YESNO]
131           Instance method.  Controls whether the parser will attempt to
132           decode all the MIME headers (as per RFC 2047) the moment it sees
133           them.  This is not advisable for two very important reasons:
134
135It screws up the extraction of information from MIME fields.
136               If you fully decode the headers into bytes, you can
137               inadvertently transform a parseable MIME header like this:
138
139                   Content-type: text/plain; filename="=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Hi=22Ho?="
140
141               into unparseable gobbledygook; in this case:
142
143                   Content-type: text/plain; filename="Hi"Ho"
144
145It is information-lossy.  An encoded string which contains both
146               Latin-1 and Cyrillic characters will be turned into a binary
147               mishmosh which simply can't be rendered.
148
149           History.  This method was once the only out-of-the-box way to deal
150           with attachments whose filenames had non-ASCII characters.
151           However, since MIME-tools 5.4xx this is no longer necessary.
152
153           Parameters.  If YESNO is true, decoding is done.  However, you will
154           get a warning unless you use one of the special "true" values:
155
156              "I_NEED_TO_FIX_THIS"
157                     Just shut up and do it.  Not recommended.
158                     Provided only for those who need to keep old scripts functioning.
159
160              "I_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING"
161                     Just shut up and do it.  Not recommended.
162                     Provided for those who REALLY know what they are doing.
163
164           If YESNO is false (the default), no attempt at decoding will be
165           done.  With no argument, just returns the current setting.
166           Remember: you can always decode the headers after the parsing has
167           completed (see MIME::Head::decode()), or decode the words on demand
168           (see MIME::Words).
169
170       extract_nested_messages OPTION
171           Instance method.  Some MIME messages will contain a part of type
172           "message/rfc822" ,"message/partial" or "message/external-body":
173           literally, the text of an embedded mail/news/whatever message.
174           This option controls whether (and how) we parse that embedded
175           message.
176
177           If the OPTION is false, we treat such a message just as if it were
178           a "text/plain" document, without attempting to decode its contents.
179
180           If the OPTION is true (the default), the body of the
181           "message/rfc822" or "message/partial" part is parsed by this
182           parser, creating an entity object.  What happens then is determined
183           by the actual OPTION:
184
185           NEST or 1
186               The default setting.  The contained message becomes the sole
187               "part" of the "message/rfc822" entity (as if the containing
188               message were a special kind of "multipart" message).  You can
189               recover the sub-entity by invoking the parts() method on the
190               "message/rfc822" entity.
191
192           REPLACE
193               The contained message replaces the "message/rfc822" entity, as
194               though the "message/rfc822" "container" never existed.
195
196               Warning: notice that, with this option, all the header
197               information in the "message/rfc822" header is lost.  This might
198               seriously bother you if you're dealing with a top-level
199               message, and you've just lost the sender's address and the
200               subject line.  ":-/".
201
202           Thanks to Andreas Koenig for suggesting this method.
203
204       extract_uuencode [YESNO]
205           Instance method.  If set true, then whenever we are confronted with
206           a message whose effective content-type is "text/plain" and whose
207           encoding is 7bit/8bit/binary, we scan the encoded body to see if it
208           contains uuencoded data (generally given away by a "begin XXX"
209           line).
210
211           If it does, we explode the uuencoded message into a multipart,
212           where the text before the first "begin XXX" becomes the first part,
213           and all "begin...end" sections following become the subsequent
214           parts.  The filename (if given) is accessible through the normal
215           means.
216
217       ignore_errors [YESNO]
218           Instance method.  Controls whether the parser will attempt to
219           ignore normally-fatal errors, treating them as warnings and
220           continuing with the parse.
221
222           If YESNO is true (the default), many syntax errors are tolerated.
223           If YESNO is false, fatal errors throw exceptions.  With no
224           argument, just returns the current setting.
225
226       decode_bodies [YESNO]
227           Instance method.  Controls whether the parser should decode entity
228           bodies or not.  If this is set to a false value (default is true),
229           all entity bodies will be kept as-is in the original content-
230           transfer encoding.
231
232           To prevent double encoding on the output side
233           MIME::Body->is_encoded is set, which tells MIME::Body not to encode
234           the data again, if encoded data was requested. This is in
235           particular useful, when it's important that the content must not be
236           modified, e.g. if you want to calculate OpenPGP signatures from it.
237
238           WARNING: the semantics change significantly if you parse MIME
239           messages with this option set, because MIME::Entity resp.
240           MIME::Body *always* see encoded data now, while the default
241           behaviour is working with *decoded* data (and encoding it only if
242           you request it).  You need to decode the data yourself, if you want
243           to have it decoded.
244
245           So use this option only if you exactly know, what you're doing, and
246           that you're sure, that you really need it.
247
248   Parsing an input source
249       parse_data DATA
250           Instance method.  Parse a MIME message that's already in core.
251           This internally creates an "in memory" filehandle on a Perl scalar
252           value using PerlIO
253
254           You may supply the DATA in any of a number of ways...
255
256A scalar which holds the message.  A reference to this scalar
257               will be used internally.
258
259A ref to a scalar which holds the message.  This reference will
260               be used internally.
261
262DEPRECATED
263
264               A ref to an array of scalars.  The array is internally
265               concatenated into a temporary string, and a reference to the
266               new string is used internally.
267
268               It is much more efficient to pass in a scalar reference, so
269               please consider refactoring your code to use that interface
270               instead.  If you absolutely MUST pass an array, you may be
271               better off using IO::ScalarArray in the calling code to
272               generate a filehandle, and passing that filehandle to parse()
273
274           Returns the parsed MIME::Entity on success.
275
276       parse INSTREAM
277           Instance method.  Takes a MIME-stream and splits it into its
278           component entities.
279
280           The INSTREAM can be given as an IO::File, a globref filehandle
281           (like "\*STDIN"), or as any blessed object conforming to the IO::
282           interface (which minimally implements getline() and read()).
283
284           Returns the parsed MIME::Entity on success.  Throws exception on
285           failure.  If the message contained too many parts (as set by
286           max_parts), returns undef.
287
288       parse_open EXPR
289           Instance method.  Convenience front-end onto "parse()".  Simply
290           give this method any expression that may be sent as the second
291           argument to open() to open a filehandle for reading.
292
293           Returns the parsed MIME::Entity on success.  Throws exception on
294           failure.
295
296       parse_two HEADFILE, BODYFILE
297           Instance method.  Convenience front-end onto "parse_open()",
298           intended for programs running under mail-handlers like deliver,
299           which splits the incoming mail message into a header file and a
300           body file.  Simply give this method the paths to the respective
301           files.
302
303           Warning: it is assumed that, once the files are cat'ed together,
304           there will be a blank line separating the head part and the body
305           part.
306
307           Warning: new implementation slurps files into line array for
308           portability, instead of using 'cat'.  May be an issue if your
309           messages are large.
310
311           Returns the parsed MIME::Entity on success.  Throws exception on
312           failure.
313
314   Specifying output destination
315       Warning: in 5.212 and before, this was done by methods of MIME::Parser.
316       However, since many users have requested fine-tuned control over how
317       this is done, the logic has been split off from the parser into its own
318       class, MIME::Parser::Filer Every MIME::Parser maintains an instance of
319       a MIME::Parser::Filer subclass to manage disk output (see
320       MIME::Parser::Filer for details.)
321
322       The benefit to this is that the MIME::Parser code won't be confounded
323       with a lot of garbage related to disk output.  The drawback is that the
324       way you override the default behavior will change.
325
326       For now, all the normal public-interface methods are still provided,
327       but many are only stubs which create or delegate to the underlying
328       MIME::Parser::Filer object.
329
330       filer [FILER]
331           Instance method.  Get/set the FILER object used to manage the
332           output of files to disk.  This will be some subclass of
333           MIME::Parser::Filer.
334
335       output_dir DIRECTORY
336           Instance method.  Causes messages to be filed directly into the
337           given DIRECTORY.  It does this by setting the underlying filer() to
338           a new instance of MIME::Parser::FileInto, and passing the arguments
339           into that class' new() method.
340
341           Note: Since this method replaces the underlying filer, you must
342           invoke it before doing changing any attributes of the filer, like
343           the output prefix; otherwise those changes will be lost.
344
345       output_under BASEDIR, OPTS...
346           Instance method.  Causes messages to be filed directly into
347           subdirectories of the given BASEDIR, one subdirectory per message.
348           It does this by setting the underlying filer() to a new instance of
349           MIME::Parser::FileUnder, and passing the arguments into that class'
350           new() method.
351
352           Note: Since this method replaces the underlying filer, you must
353           invoke it before doing changing any attributes of the filer, like
354           the output prefix; otherwise those changes will be lost.
355
356       output_path HEAD
357           Instance method, DEPRECATED.  Given a MIME head for a file to be
358           extracted, come up with a good output pathname for the extracted
359           file.  Identical to the preferred form:
360
361                $parser->filer->output_path(...args...);
362
363           We just delegate this to the underlying filer() object.
364
365       output_prefix [PREFIX]
366           Instance method, DEPRECATED.  Get/set the short string that all
367           filenames for extracted body-parts will begin with (assuming that
368           there is no better "recommended filename").  Identical to the
369           preferred form:
370
371                $parser->filer->output_prefix(...args...);
372
373           We just delegate this to the underlying filer() object.
374
375       evil_filename NAME
376           Instance method, DEPRECATED.  Identical to the preferred form:
377
378                $parser->filer->evil_filename(...args...);
379
380           We just delegate this to the underlying filer() object.
381
382       max_parts NUM
383           Instance method.  Limits the number of MIME parts we will parse.
384
385           Normally, instances of this class parse a message to the bitter
386           end.  Messages with many MIME parts can cause excessive memory
387           consumption.  If you invoke this method, parsing will abort with a
388           die() if a message contains more than NUM parts.
389
390           If NUM is set to -1 (the default), then no maximum limit is
391           enforced.
392
393           With no argument, returns the current setting as an integer
394
395       output_to_core YESNO
396           Instance method.  Normally, instances of this class output all
397           their decoded body data to disk files (via MIME::Body::File).
398           However, you can change this behaviour by invoking this method
399           before parsing:
400
401           If YESNO is false (the default), then all body data goes to disk
402           files.
403
404           If YESNO is true, then all body data goes to in-core data
405           structures This is a little risky (what if someone emails you an
406           MPEG or a tar file, hmmm?) but people seem to want this bit of
407           noose-shaped rope, so I'm providing it.  Note that setting this
408           attribute true does not mean that parser-internal temporary files
409           are avoided!  Use tmp_to_core() for that.
410
411           With no argument, returns the current setting as a boolean.
412
413       tmp_recycling
414           Instance method, DEPRECATED.
415
416           This method is a no-op to preserve the pre-5.421 API.
417
418           The tmp_recycling() feature was removed in 5.421 because it had
419           never actually worked.  Please update your code to stop using it.
420
421       tmp_to_core [YESNO]
422           Instance method.  Should new_tmpfile() create real temp files, or
423           use fake in-core ones?  Normally we allow the creation of temporary
424           disk files, since this allows us to handle huge attachments even
425           when core is limited.
426
427           If YESNO is true, we implement new_tmpfile() via in-core handles.
428           If YESNO is false (the default), we use real tmpfiles.  With no
429           argument, just returns the current setting.
430
431       use_inner_files [YESNO]
432           REMOVED.
433
434           Instance method.
435
436           MIME::Parser no longer supports IO::InnerFile, but this method is
437           retained for backwards compatibility.  It does nothing.
438
439           The original reasoning for IO::InnerFile was that inner files were
440           faster than "in-core" temp files.  At the time, the "in-core"
441           tempfile support was implemented with IO::Scalar from the IO-
442           Stringy distribution, which used the tie() interface to wrap a
443           scalar with the appropriate IO::Handle operations.  The penalty for
444           this was fairly hefty, and IO::InnerFile actually was faster.
445
446           Nowadays, MIME::Parser uses Perl's built in ability to open a
447           filehandle on an in-memory scalar variable via PerlIO.
448           Benchmarking shows that IO::InnerFile is slightly slower than using
449           in-memory temporary files, and is slightly faster than on-disk
450           temporary files.  Both measurements are within a few percent of
451           each other.  Since there's no real benefit, and since the
452           IO::InnerFile abuse was fairly hairy and evil ("writes" to it were
453           faked by extending the size of the inner file with the assumption
454           that the only data you'd ever ->print() to it would be the line
455           from the "outer" file, for example) it's been removed.
456
457   Specifying classes to be instantiated
458       interface ROLE,[VALUE]
459           Instance method.  During parsing, the parser normally creates
460           instances of certain classes, like MIME::Entity.  However, you may
461           want to create a parser subclass that uses your own experimental
462           head, entity, etc. classes (for example, your "head" class may
463           provide some additional MIME-field-oriented methods).
464
465           If so, then this is the method that your subclass should invoke
466           during init.  Use it like this:
467
468               package MyParser;
469               @ISA = qw(MIME::Parser);
470               ...
471               sub init {
472                   my $self = shift;
473                   $self->SUPER::init(@_);        ### do my parent's init
474                   $self->interface(ENTITY_CLASS => 'MIME::MyEntity');
475                   $self->interface(HEAD_CLASS   => 'MIME::MyHead');
476                   $self;                         ### return
477               }
478
479           With no VALUE, returns the VALUE currently associated with that
480           ROLE.
481
482       new_body_for HEAD
483           Instance method.  Based on the HEAD of a part we are parsing,
484           return a new body object (any desirable subclass of MIME::Body) for
485           receiving that part's data.
486
487           If you set the "output_to_core" option to false before parsing (the
488           default), then we call "output_path()" and create a new
489           MIME::Body::File on that filename.
490
491           If you set the "output_to_core" option to true before parsing, then
492           you get a MIME::Body::InCore instead.
493
494           If you want the parser to do something else entirely, you can
495           override this method in a subclass.
496
497   Temporary File Creation
498       tmp_dir DIRECTORY
499           Instance method.  Causes any temporary files created by this parser
500           to be created in the given DIRECTORY.
501
502           If called without arguments, returns current value.
503
504           The default value is undef, which will cause new_tmpfile() to use
505           the system default temporary directory.
506
507       new_tmpfile
508           Instance method.  Return an IO handle to be used to hold temporary
509           data during a parse.
510
511           The default uses MIME::Tools::tmpopen() to create a new temporary
512           file, unless tmp_to_core() dictates otherwise, but you can override
513           this.  You shouldn't need to.
514
515           The location for temporary files can be changed on a per-parser
516           basis with tmp_dir().
517
518           If you do override this, make certain that the object you return is
519           set for binmode(), and is able to handle the following methods:
520
521               read(BUF, NBYTES)
522               getline()
523               getlines()
524               print(@ARGS)
525               flush()
526               seek(0, 0)
527
528           Fatal exception if the stream could not be established.
529
530   Parse results and error recovery
531       last_error
532           Instance method.  Return the error (if any) that we ignored in the
533           last parse.
534
535       last_head
536           Instance method.  Return the top-level MIME header of the last
537           stream we attempted to parse.  This is useful for replying to
538           people who sent us bad MIME messages.
539
540               ### Parse an input stream:
541               eval { $entity = $parser->parse(\*STDIN) };
542               if (!$entity) {    ### parse failed!
543                   my $decapitated = $parser->last_head;
544                   ...
545               }
546
547       results
548           Instance method.  Return an object containing lots of info from the
549           last entity parsed.  This will be an instance of class
550           MIME::Parser::Results.
551

OPTIMIZING YOUR PARSER

553   Maximizing speed
554       Optimum input mechanisms:
555
556           parse()                    YES (if you give it a globref or a
557                                           subclass of IO::File)
558           parse_open()               YES
559           parse_data()               NO  (see below)
560           parse_two()                NO  (see below)
561
562       Optimum settings:
563
564           decode_headers()           *** (no real difference; 0 is slightly faster)
565           extract_nested_messages()  0   (may be slightly faster, but in
566                                           general you want it set to 1)
567           output_to_core()           0   (will be MUCH faster)
568           tmp_to_core()              0   (will be MUCH faster)
569
570       Native I/O is much faster than object-oriented I/O.  It's much faster
571       to use <$foo> than $foo->getline.  For backwards compatibility, this
572       module must continue to use object-oriented I/O in most places, but if
573       you use parse() with a "real" filehandle (string, globref, or subclass
574       of IO::File) then MIME::Parser is able to perform some crucial
575       optimizations.
576
577       The parse_two() call is very inefficient.  Currently this is just a
578       front-end onto parse_data().  If your OS supports it, you're far better
579       off doing something like:
580
581           $parser->parse_open("/bin/cat msg.head msg.body |");
582
583   Minimizing memory
584       Optimum input mechanisms:
585
586           parse()                    YES
587           parse_open()               YES
588           parse_data()               NO  (in-core I/O will burn core)
589           parse_two()                NO  (in-core I/O will burn core)
590
591       Optimum settings:
592
593           decode_headers()           *** (no real difference)
594           extract_nested_messages()  *** (no real difference)
595           output_to_core()           0   (will use MUCH less memory)
596                                           tmp_to_core is 1)
597           tmp_to_core()              0   (will use MUCH less memory)
598
599   Maximizing tolerance of bad MIME
600       Optimum input mechanisms:
601
602           parse()                    *** (doesn't matter)
603           parse_open()               *** (doesn't matter)
604           parse_data()               *** (doesn't matter)
605           parse_two()                *** (doesn't matter)
606
607       Optimum settings:
608
609           decode_headers()           0   (sidesteps problem of bad hdr encodings)
610           extract_nested_messages()  0   (sidesteps problems of bad nested messages,
611                                           but often you want it set to 1 anyway).
612           output_to_core()           *** (doesn't matter)
613           tmp_to_core()              *** (doesn't matter)
614
615   Avoiding disk-based temporary files
616       Optimum input mechanisms:
617
618           parse()                    YES (if you give it a seekable handle)
619           parse_open()               YES (becomes a seekable handle)
620           parse_data()               NO  (unless you set tmp_to_core(1))
621           parse_two()                NO  (unless you set tmp_to_core(1))
622
623       Optimum settings:
624
625           decode_headers()           *** (doesn't matter)
626           extract_nested_messages()  *** (doesn't matter)
627           output_to_core()           *** (doesn't matter)
628           tmp_to_core()              1
629
630       You can veto tmpfiles entirely.  You can set tmp_to_core() true: this
631       will always use in-core I/O for the buffering (warning: this will slow
632       down the parsing of messages with large attachments).
633
634       Final resort.  You can always override new_tmpfile() in a subclass.
635

WARNINGS

637       Multipart messages are always read line-by-line
638           Multipart document parts are read line-by-line, so that the
639           encapsulation boundaries may easily be detected.  However, bad MIME
640           composition agents (for example, naive CGI scripts) might return
641           multipart documents where the parts are, say, unencoded bitmap
642           files... and, consequently, where such "lines" might be
643           veeeeeeeeery long indeed.
644
645           A better solution for this case would be to set up some form of
646           state machine for input processing.  This will be left for future
647           versions.
648
649       Multipart parts read into temp files before decoding
650           In my original implementation, the MIME::Decoder classes had to be
651           aware of encapsulation boundaries in multipart MIME documents.
652           While this decode-while-parsing approach obviated the need for
653           temporary files, it resulted in inflexible and complex decoder
654           implementations.
655
656           The revised implementation uses a temporary file (a la "tmpfile()")
657           during parsing to hold the encoded portion of the current MIME
658           document or part.  This file is deleted automatically after the
659           current part is decoded and the data is written to the "body
660           stream" object; you'll never see it, and should never need to worry
661           about it.
662
663           Some folks have asked for the ability to bypass this temp-file
664           mechanism, I suppose because they assume it would slow down their
665           application.  I considered accommodating this wish, but the temp-
666           file approach solves a lot of thorny problems in parsing, and it
667           also protects against hidden bugs in user applications (what if
668           you've directed the encoded part into a scalar, and someone
669           unexpectedly sends you a 6 MB tar file?).  Finally, I'm just not
670           convinced that the temp-file use adds significant overhead.
671
672       Fuzzing of CRLF and newline on input
673           RFC 2045 dictates that MIME streams have lines terminated by CRLF
674           ("\r\n").  However, it is extremely likely that folks will want to
675           parse MIME streams where each line ends in the local newline
676           character "\n" instead.
677
678           An attempt has been made to allow the parser to handle both CRLF
679           and newline-terminated input.
680
681       Fuzzing of CRLF and newline on output
682           The "7bit" and "8bit" decoders will decode both a "\n" and a "\r\n"
683           end-of-line sequence into a "\n".
684
685           The "binary" decoder (default if no encoding specified) still
686           outputs stuff verbatim... so a MIME message with CRLFs and no
687           explicit encoding will be output as a text file that, on many
688           systems, will have an annoying ^M at the end of each line... but
689           this is as it should be.
690
691       Inability to handle multipart boundaries that contain newlines
692           First, let's get something straight: this is an evil, EVIL
693           practice, and is incompatible with RFC 2046... hence, it's not
694           valid MIME.
695
696           If your mailer creates multipart boundary strings that contain
697           newlines when they appear in the message body, give it two weeks
698           notice and find another one.  If your mail robot receives MIME mail
699           like this, regard it as syntactically incorrect MIME, which it is.
700
701           Why do I say that?  Well, in RFC 2046, the syntax of a boundary is
702           given quite clearly:
703
704                 boundary := 0*69<bchars> bcharsnospace
705
706                 bchars := bcharsnospace / " "
707
708                 bcharsnospace :=    DIGIT / ALPHA / "'" / "(" / ")" / "+" /"_"
709                              / "," / "-" / "." / "/" / ":" / "=" / "?"
710
711           All of which means that a valid boundary string cannot have
712           newlines in it, and any newlines in such a string in the message
713           header are expected to be solely the result of folding the string
714           (i.e., inserting to-be-removed newlines for readability and line-
715           shortening only).
716
717           Yet, there is at least one brain-damaged user agent out there that
718           composes mail like this:
719
720                 MIME-Version: 1.0
721                 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----ABC-
722                  123----"
723                 Subject: Hi... I'm a dork!
724
725                 This is a multipart MIME message (yeah, right...)
726
727                 ----ABC-
728                  123----
729
730                 Hi there!
731
732           We have got to discourage practices like this (and the recent file
733           upload idiocy where binary files that are part of a multipart MIME
734           message aren't base64-encoded) if we want MIME to stay relatively
735           simple, and MIME parsers to be relatively robust.
736
737           Thanks to Andreas Koenig for bringing a baaaaaaaaad user agent to
738           my attention.
739

SEE ALSO

741       MIME::Tools, MIME::Head, MIME::Body, MIME::Entity, MIME::Decoder
742

AUTHOR

744       Eryq (eryq@zeegee.com), ZeeGee Software Inc (http://www.zeegee.com).
745       Dianne Skoll (dfs@roaringpenguin.com) http://www.roaringpenguin.com
746
747       All rights reserved.  This program is free software; you can
748       redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
749
750
751
752perl v5.34.0                      2022-01-21                   MIME::Parser(3)
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