Ocamlnet 4 Reference Manual : Netsendmail_tut

# Netsendmail_tut

# Netsendmail Tutorial

Generating mail messages is a very complicated procedure. `Netsendmail` provides a comparatively simple interface to accomplish this task without knowing too much about the details of the mail format. Here is a kind of cookbook:

## Generate an ASCII Mail

In the simplest case, the mail is an ASCII text. Generate the mail with

    compose ~from_addr ~to_addrs ~subject main_text

Here, `from_addr` is the sender's address as pair `(name,formal_address)`, and `to_addrs` is the list of recipients in the same format. The variable `subject` contains the subject of the message as string. Finally, `main_text` is the ASCII text.

## Generate an Internationalised Mail

When addresses or the main text contain non-ASCII characters, you should care about the `in_charset` and `out_charset` parameters. In general, the strings you pass to `compose` are encoded as `in_charset`, and the strings in the generated mail are encoded as `out_charset`. Usually, it is a good idea to have `in_charset = out_charset`, or `out_charset` as a superset of `in_charset` (otherwise you might get conversion errors).

The default for both parameters is ``Enc_iso88591`.

Not everything can be internationalised. In particular, the `subject`, the informal names of mail addresses, the `content_description`, and the main text can be encoded in a non-ASCII character set. Especially, the formal mail addresses cannot be internationalised. Example:

    compose
      ~in_charset:`Enc_iso885915
      ~out_charset:`Enc_iso885915
      ~from_addr:("Heinz Dräger", "heinz\@draeger.de")
      ~to_addr:("Marion Schröder", "marion\@irgendwo.de")
      ~subject:"Geschäftlich"
      "Verkaufe Teddy-Bären für 100¤"

Note that when you also pass `content_type`, the main text is no longer converted according to `in_charset` and `out_charset`. It is expected that the main text has already the right encoding, and that the encoding is indicated by the `content_type`. Example:

    compose
      ~in_charset:`Enc_iso885915
      ~out_charset:`Enc_iso885915
      ~from_addr:("Heinz Dräger", "heinz\@draeger.de")
      ~to_addr:("Marion Schröder", "marion\@irgendwo.de")
      ~content_type:("text/html", ["charset", Netmime_string.mk_param "ISO-8859-1"])
      ~subject:"Geschäftlich"
      "<html><body>Verkaufe Teddy-Bären für 100&euro;</body></html>"

Here, the header fields are encoded in ISO-8859-15, but the main text uses ISO-8859-1.

The function `Netmime_string.mk_param` encapsulates parameter values for several kinds of structured values that may occur in mail headers, here for `Content-type`. This function takes care of the appropriate representation of the parameter value (e.g. for parameters like "title" that can be internationalised).

## Generate a Mail with Attachments

An attachment can simply be passed to `compose`. For example, to add a file "foo.gif":

    compose
      ...
      attachments:[ wrap_attachment
                      ~content_type:("image/gif", [])
                      (new Netmime.file_mime_body "foo.gif") ]
      ...

This creates a `multipart/mixed` mail. The class `Netmime.file_mime_body` encapsulates a file as a MIME body that can be attached to the mail (note: The file is not read as a whole into memory, but only chunk by chunk, so you can even attach large files without exhausting memory).

The type `multipart/mixed` has the special feature that the attached parts can either by displayed "inline" with the other contents, or suggested for saving in a file. This hint is indicated by the `Content-disposition` header. For example, to have the first attachment "inline", and the second as a file with name "foo.gif", use:

    compose
      ...
      attachments:[ wrap_attachment
                      ~content_type:("image/gif", [])
                      ~content_disposition:("inline", [])
                      (new Netmime.file_mime_body "foo.gif");
                    wrap_attachment
                      ~content_type:("image/gif", [])
                      ~content_disposition:("attachment", ["filename",
                                                           Netmime_string.mk_param "foo.gif"])
                      (new Netmime.file_mime_body "foo.gif") ]
      ...

## Generate a Multi-Format Mail

It is possible to generate messages where the main part is available in several formats, e.g. in `text/plain` and `text/html`. The mail reader program can select which format can be presented best to the user.

The `compose` function is not the right means to produce such a mail. It is better to use the more capable functions `wrap_parts` and `wrap_mail` for this purpose.

For example, to get a message with the `text/plain` version `s_plain` and the `text/html` version `s_html`, use:

    wrap_mail
       ~from_addr ~to_addrs ~subject
       (wrap_parts
          ~content_type:("multipart/alternative", [])
          [ wrap_attachment
              ~content_type:("text/plain", [])
              (new Netmime.memory_mime_body s_plain);
            wrap_attachment
              ~content_type:("text/html", [])
              (new Netmime.memory_mime_body s_html)
          ])

Here, `wrap_attachment` is used to encapsulate the two versions of the main text. This works because there is no difference between the format of an attachment and the format of a text part. (Actually, `wrap_attachment` should be better called `wrap_body`.) The class `Netmime.memory_mime_body` encapsulates a string as MIME body.

The function `wrap_parts` bundles the two versions to the main message, and `wrap_mail` adds the mail headers necessary to deliver the mail.

Note that the simplest version of the message should be added first, and the fanciest version of the message should be added last.

As a variant, one can also add file attachments. To do so, insert a `multipart/mixed` container around the `multipart/alternative` message:

    wrap_mail
       ~from_addr ~to_addrs ~subject
       (wrap_parts
          ~content_type:("multipart/mixed", [])
          [ wrap_parts
              ~content_type:("multipart/alternative", [])
              [ wrap_attachment
                  ~content_type:("text/plain", [])
                  (new Netmime.memory_mime_body s_plain);
                wrap_attachment
                  ~content_type:("text/html", [])
                  (new Netmime.memory_mime_body s_html)
              ];
            wrap_attachment
              ~content_type:("audio/wav", [])
              (new Netmime.file_mime_body "music.wav")
          ])

## Generate an MHTML Message

MHTML is an HTML document with attached resource files like images or style sheets. For example, to have the HTML text `s_html` bundled with an image and a style sheet, use:

    wrap_mail
       ~from_addr ~to_addrs ~subject
       (wrap_parts
          ~content_type:("multipart/related",
                         [ "type", Netmime_string.mk_param "text/html" ])
          [ wrap_attachment
              ~content_type:("text/html", [])
              (new Netmime.memory_mime_body s_html);
            wrap_attachment
              ~content_type:("image/gif", [])
              ~content_id:"img1"
              (new Netmime.file_mime_body "my.gif")
            wrap_attachment
              ~content_type:("text/css", [])
              ~content_id:"style1"
              (new Netmime.file_mime_body "style.css")
          ])

Note the `content_id` arguments that assign names to the individual parts. One can now refer to the parts from the HTML document by `cid` URLs, e.g. `cid:img1` points to the image in the second part.

There is another mechanism using the `Content-Location` header to resolve hyperlinks to message parts. See RFC 2557 for details.