Ocamlnet 4 Reference Manual : Netsendmail

# Module Netsendmail

    module Netsendmail: sig .. end

Functions to compose and send electronic mails

Contents

- Composing Messages
- Sending Messages

The tutorial has been moved to `Netsendmail_tut`.

# Composing Messages

The core function is `Netsendmail.compose` generating a MIME mail. The mail can be sent with `Netsendmail.sendmail`, written to an object channel with `Netmime.write_mime_message`, or postprocessed by a user function.

The call to `compose` can be as easy as

     compose ~from_addr:("me", "me@domain.net")
                ~to_addrs:["you", "you@domain.com"]
                ~subject:"I have a message for you"
                "Hello, this is my message!\n"

This call generates the message as `Netmime.complex_mime_message`, and can be directly sent with `Netsendmail.sendmail`.

The `compose` function is the simplified interface; alternatively one can also generate the mail by calling `Netsendmail.wrap_mail`, `Netsendmail.wrap_parts`, and `Netsendmail.wrap_attachment`, getting more fine-grained control of certain options.

    val compose : ?in_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?out_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?from_addr:string * string ->
           ?cc_addrs:(string * string) list ->
           ?bcc_addrs:(string * string) list ->
           ?content_type:string * (string * Netmime_string.s_param) list ->
           ?container_type:string * (string * Netmime_string.s_param) list ->
           ?attachments:Netmime.complex_mime_message list ->
           to_addrs:(string * string) list ->
           subject:string -> string -> Netmime.complex_mime_message

Composes a mail message with a main text, and optionally a number of attachments.

The addresses `from_addr`, `to_addrs`, `cc_addrs`, and `bcc_addrs` are passed as pairs `(human_readable,formal)` where `human_readable` is an arbitrary printable string identifying the sender/receiver, and where `formal` is the RFC-822 mailbox specification. An example is `("Stolpmann, Gerd", "gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de")`.

The `subject` can be any text.

The anonymous `string` argument is the main text of the mail.

The resulting message is always a correct MIME message.

`in_charset` : All passed texts (except the formal addresses) must be encoded in `in_charset`. Default: ``Enc_iso88591`. As another exception, setting `content_type` explicitly prevents the main text from being converted, and `in_charset` does not have a meaning for the main text.
`out_charset` : The encoded words in the generated header fields, if necessary, and the main text are encoded in `out_charset`. Default: ``Enc_iso88591`. It is required that `out_charset` is ASCII-compatible. As a special rule, setting `content_type` explicitly prevents the main text from being converted to `out_charset`.
`content_type` : The content type of the main text. The list is the list of parameters attached to the type, e.g. `("text/plain", ["charset", mk_param "ISO-8859-1"])` (see `Netmime_string.mk_param`). When this argument is set, the main text is no longer converted to `out_charset`. By default, when this argument is missing, the main text is converted from `in_charset` to `out_charset`, and the content type becomes `"text/plain; charset=<out_charset>"`.
`container_type` : The content type of the container wrapping the main text and the attachment into one entity (only used if `attachments` are present). This defaults to `("multipart/mixed", [])`. This must be either a "multipart" or "message" type.
`attachments` : An optional list of attachments. Should be generated with `wrap_attachment`.
Character Set Conversion

The impact of `in_charset` and `out_charset` on the generated mail is not very obvious. The charset arguments may have an effect on the mail header and the mail body.

The mail header can only be composed of ASCII characters (7 bit). To circumvent this restriction the MIME standard specifies a special format, the so-called encoded words. These may only be used in some places, and `compose` knows where: In the subject, and the non-formal part of mail addresses. The `out_charset` is the character set used in the generated mail. The `in_charset` is the character set the strings are encoded you pass to `compose`. It is a good idea to have `in_charset = out_charset`, or at least choose `out_charset` as a superset of `in_charset`, because this ensures that the character set conversion succeeds.

If the mail header does not make use of the additional non-ASCII characters, the encoded words will be avoided.

The mail body is only subject of character set conversion if the `content_type` is not passed to `compose`. In this case, the function sets it to `text/plain`, and converts the message from `in_charset` to `out_charset`.

Adding Attachments

To generate the attachments, call `Netsendmail.wrap_attachment`, e.g.

     compose ...
          ~attachments:[ wrap_attachment
                           ~content_type:("application/octet-stream", [])
                           (new Netmime.file_mime_body "file.tar.gz") ]

There are a number of kinds of attaching files, identified by `container_type`. The default is `multipart/mixed`, meaning that the parts of the mail are mixed messages and files. One can give a hint whether to display the parts directly in the mailer program (so-called inline attachments), or whether to suggest that the file is saved to disk ("real" attachments). This hint is contained in the `Content-disposition` header, see `wrap_attachment` how to set it.

For a discusion of the other `container_type`s see the `Netsendmail.tutorial` at the end of this document.

    val wrap_attachment : ?in_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?out_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?content_id:string ->
           ?content_description:string ->
           ?content_location:string ->
           ?content_disposition:string * (string * Netmime_string.s_param) list ->
           content_type:string * (string * Netmime_string.s_param) list ->
           Netmime.mime_body -> Netmime.complex_mime_message

Generates a header for the `mime_body`. The returned value is intended to be used as input for the `attachments` argument of the `compose` function:

     compose ...
        ~attachments:[ wrap_attachment
                          ~content_type:("audio/wav", [])
                          (new file_mime_body "music.wav") ]

The header contains at least the `Content-type` and the `Content-transfer-encoding` fields. The latter is currently always `"base64"`, but it is possible that the function is changed in the future to also generate `"quoted-printable"` when applicable.

`in_charset` : The encoding of the `content_description` argument. Default: ``Enc_iso88591`.
`out_charset` : The encoding of the generated `Content-Description` header. Default: ``Enc_iso88591`.
`content_id` : Optionally sets the `Content-ID` header field. The passed string is the ID value without the embracing angle brackets. The `Content-ID` can be used to refer to the attachment from other parts of the mail, e.g. in `multipart/related` mails HTML documents can include hyperlinks to attachments using the URL syntax `cid:ID` where `ID` is the ID value.
`content_description` : The `Content-Description` header
`content_location` : The `Content-Location` header. This must be a valid URL, only composed of 7 bit characters, and with escaped unsafe characters
`content_disposition` : Optionally sets the `Content-disposition` header. Frequent values are

- `("inline", [])` : Indicates that the attachment is displayed together with the main text
- `("attachment", ["filename", Netmime_string.mk_param fn])` : Indicates that the attachment should be stored onto the disk. The parameter `fn` is the suggested file name. Note that `fn` should only consist of ASCII characters unless the `charset` argument of `mk_param` is set to a different character encoding.

`content_type` : Specifies the content type with main type and list of parameters. Example: `("text/plain", ["charset", Netmime_string.mk_param "ISO-8859-1" ])` (see `Netmime_string.mk_param`)

    val wrap_mail : ?in_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?out_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?from_addr:string * string ->
           ?cc_addrs:(string * string) list ->
           ?bcc_addrs:(string * string) list ->
           to_addrs:(string * string) list ->
           subject:string ->
           Netmime.complex_mime_message -> Netmime.complex_mime_message

Sets the mail-related header fields in the input message, and returns a message ready for delivery. Transfer- and delivery-related header fields are removed from the message first, and the new fields are set to the values passed to this function.

The arguments are like in `Netsendmail.compose`.

The input message should have at least a `Content-type` header, but this is not enforced.

Use this function as an alternative to `Netsendmail.compose`, if the message is already available as `complex_mime_message`, e.g. to re-send a parsed mail message to a new destination.

Note: Resending Messages

Note that mails generated by `wrap_mail` always appear as new mails, not as forwarded or replied mails. In order to do the latter a different way of processing the message is needed.

    val wrap_parts : ?in_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?out_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?content_type:string * (string * Netmime_string.s_param) list ->
           ?content_id:string ->
           ?content_description:string ->
           ?content_location:string ->
           ?content_disposition:string * (string * Netmime_string.s_param) list ->
           Netmime.complex_mime_message list -> Netmime.complex_mime_message

Generates an intermediate container for multipart attachments. Use this if you want to bundle a set of attachments as a single attachment.

`in_charset` : The encoding of the `content_description` argument. Default: ``Enc_iso88591`.
`out_charset` : The encoding of the generated `Content-Description` header. Default: ``Enc_iso88591`.
`content_type` : The `Content-Type` header. Default: multipart/mixed
`content_id` : The `Content-ID` header, without the angle brackets
`content_description` : The `Content-Description` header
`content_location` : The `Content-Location` header. This must be a valid URL, only composed of 7 bit characters, and with escaped unsafe characters
`content_disposition` : The `Content-Disposition` header
Low-level

    val create_address_list_tokens : ?in_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?out_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           (string * string) list -> Netmime_string.s_token list

Returns the list of `s_token`s representing email addresses as structured value. The addresses are passed as list of pairs `(human_readable, formal)` as in the `compose` function above. The returned structured field value can be formatted and filled into a mail header. For example, to set the "To" header to `"Stolpmann, Gerd" <gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de>` use

     let sval = create_address_list_tokens ["Stolpmann, Gerd",
                                            "gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de"] in
     header # update_field "to" (format_field_value "to" sval)

This ensures that the field is correctly quoted, that appropriate encodings are applied and that long values are folded into several lines.

`in_charset` : The character encoding used for `human_readable`. Defaults to ``Enc_iso88591`.
`out_charset` : The character encoding used in the generated encoded word. This encoding must be ASCII-compatible. Defaults to ``Enc_iso88591`.

    val create_text_tokens : ?in_charset:Netconversion.encoding ->
           ?out_charset:Netconversion.encoding -> string -> Netmime_string.s_token list

Returns the list of `s_token`s representing an informal text as structured value. The text is passed as simple string. The returned structured field value can be formatted and filled into a mail header. For example, to set the "Subject" header to `"I have to say something"`, use

     let sval = create_text_tokens "I have to say something" in
     header # update_field "subject" (format_field_value "subject" sval)

This ensures that the field is correctly quoted, that appropriate encodings are applied and that long values are folded into several lines.

`in_charset` : The character encoding used for the input string. Defaults to ``Enc_iso88591`.
`out_charset` : The character encoding used in the generated encoded words. This encoding must be ASCII-compatible. Defaults to ``Enc_iso88591`.

    val format_field_value : string -> Netmime_string.s_token list -> string

To put `sval`, an `s_token list`, into the header field `name`, call

`header # update_field name (format_field_value name sval)`

The field value is folded into several lines, if necessary.

# Sending Messages

    val sendmail : ?mailer:string -> ?crlf:bool -> Netmime.complex_mime_message -> unit

Sends the passed message. The mailer program must be sendmail-compatible (this can be assumed on all Unix systems, even if a non-sendmail mailer is installed).

The mailer program is the command passed as `mailer`, which is by default a reasonable compile-time setting.

With `crlf` one can determine the EOL convention for the message piped to the mailer program: If `crlf`, CR/LF is used, if `not crlf`, only LF is used. The default is `false` for Unix systems.

See also `Netsmtp.sendmail` for a way to send emails via SMTP.