Mail::Mbox::MessageParser - A fast and simple mbox folder reader

Mail::Mbox::MessageParser is a feature-poor but very fast mbox parser. It uses
the best of three strategies for parsing a mailbox: either using cached folder
information, GNU grep, or highly optimized Perl.


NEW IN THIS VERSION

Version 1.3000: Mon Mar 14 2005
- Merged the internal caches used by the different mailbox parser
  implementations. This allows sharing of caching information. NOTE: Tighter
  integration of the classes means that you can no longer instantiate any of
  the implementations directly; you must use Mail::Mbox::MessageParser only.
- Fixed goofy version dependency for Benchmark::Timer.
- Fixed improper identification of mailboxes whose first email has a body
  containing a large number of foreign characters.
- Fixed a spurious warning in a test case.
- Fixed a test code bug that would cause some failed tests to incorrectly
  pass.
- Fixed a bug where emails with attachments would cause the mailbox parser to
  enter an infinite loop.
- Fixed a bug where the cache would not be saved to disk when the file was
  finished being read.
- Fixed a bug in the test cases where some differences in test output would
  not be detected.
- Fixed a bug in Mbox::Mail::MessageParser::Grep that would cause it to
  improperly identify separate emails in a mailbox if the "From " line looked
  like "From klopp Mon Jan  5 08:50:15 +0100 2004".


MODULE DEPENDENCIES

To use this module, you will need to install:

- FileHandle::Unget
- Storable: required if you want to use caching
- GNU grep(1): required if you want to use grep support
- bzip2(1): required if you want to use bzip and bzip2 support
- bzip(1): required if you want to use bzip support
- tzip(1): required if you want to use tzip support

You should be prompted to install modules automatically when you run "perl
Makefile.PL".


INSTALLATION

To install this package, change to the directory where you unarchived this
distribution and type the following:

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make test
  make install

You can install this package into a non-default location by appending one of
the following to the "perl Makefile.PL" command:

- "PREFIX=/installation/path" (for installation into a custom location),
- "INSTALLDIRS=site" (for installation into site-specific Perl directories)
- "INSTALLDIRS=perl" (for installation into standard Perl directories).

You will be prompted for program locations. You can suppress these prompts by
appending the path to one or more external programs to the "perl Makefile.PL"
command. For example, "GREP=/gnu/bin/grep TZIP= GZIP=/gnu/bin/gzip
BZIP=/bin/bzip2 BZIP2=/bin/bzip2" would set values for all but one program.
"TZIP=" disables compression support and prevents interactive execution.
(NOTE: These values are not validated as they are in the interactive query.)

If you make the installation into your own directory, then remember that you
must tell perl where to search for modules before trying to 'use' them. For
example:

  use lib '/home/userid/lib';
  use Mail::Mbox::MessageParser;

If make test fails, please see the INSTALLATION PROBLEMS section below.


INSTALLATION PROBLEMS

If "make test" fails, run

  make test TEST_VERBOSE=1

and see which test(s) are failing. Please email, to the address below, the
*.testoutput and *.testoutput.diff files for the test, which are located in
t/temp.

For other bugs, see the section REPORTING BUGS below.


DOCUMENTATION

Just "perldoc Mail::Mbox::MessageParser". After installation on Unix systems,
you can also do "man Mail::Mbox::MessageParser". If you are interested in the
Cache, Grep, or Perl implementations, you can do the same for
Mail::Mbox::MessageParser::Cache, Mail::Mbox::MessageParser::Grep. and
Mail::Mbox::MessageParser::Perl


HOMEPAGE

Visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/m-m-msgparser/ for the latest version,
mailing lists, discussion forums, CVS access, and more.


REPORTING BUGS

You can report bugs by filing a bug report at the project homepage. Please
attach the output files noted above. If the bug is related to processing of a
particular mailbox, try to trim the mailbox to the smallest set of emails that
still exhibit the problem.  Then use the "anonymize_mailbox" program that
comes with the distribution to remove any sensitive information, and attach
the mailbox to the bug report.


COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1998-Sep 1 2000 Broc Seib. Copyright (c) Sep 1 2000-2004 David
Coppit. All rights reserved, save those granted by the license.


LICENSE

This code is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).  See
the file LICENSE included in the distribution.


AUTHOR

David Coppit <david@coppit.org>