TNEF stands for
Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format, and if you've
ever been unfortunate enough to receive one of these files
as an email
attachment, you may want to use this module.
read() takes as its first argument any file handle open
for reading. The optional second argument is a hash
reference
which contains one or more of the following keys:
output_dir − Path for storing TNEF attribute data kept in files(default: current directory).output_prefix − File prefix for TNEF attribute data kept in files(default: 'tnef').output_to_core − TNEF attribute data will be saved in core memory unlessit is greater than this many bytes (default: 4096). May also be set to'NONE' to keep all data in files, or 'ALL' to keep all data in core.buffer_size − Buffer size for reading in the TNEF file (default: 1024).debug − If true, outputs all sorts of info about what the read() functionis reading, including the raw ascii data along with the data convertedto hex (default: false).display_after_err − If debug is true and an error is encountered,reads and displays this many bytes of data following the error(default: 32).debug_max_display − If debug is true then read and display at mostthis many bytes of data for each TNEF attribute (default: 1024).debug_max_line_size − If debug is true then at most this many bytes ofdata will be displayed on each line for each TNEF attribute(default: 64).ignore_checksum − If true, will ignore checksum errors while parsingdata (default: false).read() returns an object containing the TNEF 'attributes' read from thefile and the data for those attributes. If all you want are theattachments, then this is mostly garbage, but if you're interested thenyou can see all the garbage by turning on debugging. If the garbageproves useful to you, then let me know how I can maybe make it moreuseful.If an error is encountered, an undefined value is returned and thepackage variable $errstr is set to some helpful message.read_in() is a convienient front end for read() which takes a filenameinstead of a handle.read_ent() is another convient front end for read() which can take aMIME::Entity object (or any object with like methods, specificallyopen("r"), read($buff,$num_bytes), and close ).purge() deletes any on−disk data that may be in the attachments ofthe TNEF object.message() returns the message portion of the tnef object, if any.The thing it returns is like an attachment, but its not an attachment.For instance, it more than likely does not have a name or anyattachment data.attachments() returns a list of the attachments that the given TNEFobject contains. Returns a list ref if not called in array context.data() takes a TNEF attribute name, and returns a string value for thatattribute for that attachment. Its your own problem if the string is toobig for memory. If no argument is given, then the 'AttachData' attributeis assumed, which is probably the attachment data you're looking for.name() is the same as data(), except the attribute 'AttachTitle' isthe default, which returns the 8 character + 3 character extension nameof the attachment.longname() returns the long filename and extension of an attachment. Thisis embedded within a MAPI property of the 'Attachment' attribute data, sowe attempt to extract the name out of that.size() takes an TNEF attribute name, and returns the size in bytes forthe data for that attachment attribute.datahandle() is a method for attachments which takes a TNEF attributename, and returns the data for that attribute as a handle which isthe same as a MIME::Body handle. See MIME::Body for all the applicablemethods. If no argument is given, then 'AttachData' is assumed.EXAMPLES
# Here's a rather long example
where mail is retrieved
# from a POP3 server based on header information, then
# it is MIME parsed, and then the TNEF contents
# are extracted and converted.
use strict;
use Net::POP3;
use MIME::Parser;
use Convert::TNEF;
my $mail_dir = "mailout";
my $mail_prefix = "mail";
my $pop = new Net::POP3 ( "pop3server_name" );
my $num_msgs =
$pop−>login("user_name","password");
die "Can't login: $!" unless defined $num_msgs;
# Get mail by sender and subject
my $mail_out_idx = 0;
MESSAGE: for ( my $i=1; $i<= $num_msgs; $i++ ) {
my $header = join "", @{$pop−>top($i)};
for ($header) {
next MESSAGE unless
/ˆfrom:.*someone\@somewhere.net/im &&
/ˆsubject:\s*important stuff/im
}
my $fname =
$mail_prefix."−".$$.++$mail_out_idx.".doc";
open (MAILOUT, ">$mail_dir/$fname")
or die "Can't open $mail_dir/$fname: $!";
# If the get() complains, you need the new libnet bundle
$pop−>get($i, \*MAILOUT) or die "Can't read
mail";
close MAILOUT or die "Error closing
$mail_dir/$fname";
# If you want to delete the mail on the server
# $pop−>delete($i);
}
close MAILOUT;
$pop−>quit();
# Parse the mail message into separate mime entities
my $parser=new MIME::Parser;
$parser−>output_dir("mimemail");
opendir(DIR, $mail_dir) or die "Can't open directory
$mail_dir: $!";
my @files = map { $mail_dir."/".$_ } sort
grep { −f "$mail_dir/$_" and
/$mail_prefix−$$−/o } readdir DIR;
closedir DIR;
for my $file ( @files ) {
my $entity=$parser−>parse_in($file) or die
"Couldn't parse mail";
print_tnef_parts($entity);
# If you want to delete the working files
# $entity−>purge;
}
sub print_tnef_parts {
my $ent = shift;
if ( $ent−>parts ) {
for my $sub_ent ( $ent−>parts ) {
print_tnef_parts($sub_ent);
}
} elsif ( $ent−>mime_type =˜ /ms−tnef/i
) {
# Create a tnef object
my $tnef =
Convert::TNEF−>read_ent($ent,{output_dir=>"tnefmail"})
or die $Convert::TNEF::errstr;
for ($tnef−>attachments) {
print "Title:",$_−>name,"\n";
print "Data:\n",$_−>data,"\n";
}
# If you want to delete the working files
# $tnef−>purge;
}
}
The parsing may
depend on the endianness (see perlport) and width of
integers on the system where the TNEF file was created. If
this proves
to be the case (check the debug output), I'll see what I can
do
about it.