Reading email from Linux

[JamesBowen]

Hi all.

This is going to be an easy one.

Currently we send emails out to our customers and in the subject line I have include there customer ID and a email sequence number in the subject line.

Is there a method of automatically reading the email responses (parsing the subject line) from Linux and import the content/body (may be any attachments)of the email into the Progress DB?

Many Thanks

-- James.

 

[sphipp]

Try the mailx command.

Test it at the command prompt by:
echo Hello | mailx -s "Test1" youremailaddress
echo Hello2 | mailx -s "Test2" youremailaddress

Then view all email headers using "mailx -n" but send an "x" to it to kick it out of its interactive state.

echo x |mailx -n

This is the sample output on our linux box:

Mail version 8.1 6/6/93. Type ? for help.
"/var/spool/mail/linux": 2 messages 2 new
>N 1 youremailadress@... Thu Sep 27 07:59 16/676 "test"
N 2 youremailaddress@... Thu Sep 27 08:12 16/682 "Test2"
[linux]$

So, in progress, you'd do something like this:

def var inputline as char no-undo.
input through value ("echo x |mailx -n").
repeat:
inputline = "".
import unformatted inputline.

end.
input close.

To read the messages by message number, try:
echo 1 |mailx
to read message 1 and
echo n |mailx
to read message n.

If you want to read the messages that have been read before, you need to access the mailbox mbox.

echo x |mailx -f mbox -n

echo 1 |mailx -f mbox

As for attachments, I don't know whether mailx can read attachments. I can't find any information on how to do this. It might be worth forwarding the mail to another email account and using Outlook to read the attachments.

Hope this helps.