Parsing Email

[Anon]

Hey all,

I've got a problem that I've been trying to work out without any luck. This is what I want to happen.

I need a script that every 2 mintues checks to see if there is any email waiting on a pop3 account and if there is it grabs one message parses information that I need out of it and then deletes that message. The key is I need it run continuously and check the pop server for mail every 2 or so mintues.

What I can do so far: I've got it to check the pop server, parse the information I need and delete the message.

What I DON'T have: It cannot figure out a way to have it check every 2 minutes.

FYI: I'm on an Apache/Red Hat OS server. If that helps at all.

thanks,
Paul

[dannys]

Best way would be to setup a cronjob which you can set to call the PHP script every 2 mins.

I think you'll have to call the script using something like lynx or GET to send a proper HTTP request, unless you have the CGI version of PHP on your server.

Should give you some ideas anyway.

HTH.

[Anon]

Side-comment,

I think a better way is to (ab)use the local delivery agent for this, wich usually is called 'procmail'.

In short, this would give you a system that does not check the account constantly, the script executes once it gets an e-mail. This will probably save you as much hazzle as it will save you system resources.

For example, create a ~/.procmailrc file that looks like;

#-- begin --
:0:
* ^From: [e-mail]
{
| cd && ./someScript.pl | ./nextScript.pl
}
#-- end --

When an e-mail arrives, it's sent directly (with attachments, body and all) via STDIN to ~/someScript.pl (and then pipe STDOUT to STDIN on nextScript.pl).

Of course you can use a PHP script, C-program or whatever you want. Perl is quite elegant with the MIME-tools package (www.cpan.org), though. 🙂

[dannys]

Yup, that sounds better to me too. I've never investigated this stuff too much so I didn't know about procmail and it's uses.

[Anon]

To use a PHP script, PHP would have to be installed as binary correct?

-Paul

[dannys]

Yup, that's why I suggested using lynx to request the PHP page.