LIV. IMAP, POP3 and NNTP Functions

Introduction

These functions are not limited to the IMAP protocol, despite their name. The underlying c-client library also supports NNTP, POP3 and local mailbox access methods.

Requirements

This extension requires the c-client library to be installed. Grab the latest version from ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/ and compile it.

It's important that you do not copy the IMAP source files directly into the system include directory as there may be conflicts. Instead, create a new directory inside the system include directory, such as /usr/local/imap-2000b/ (location and name depend on your setup and IMAP version), and inside this new directory create additional directories named lib/ and include/. From the c-client directory from your IMAP source tree, copy all the *.h files into include/ and all the *.c files into lib/. Additionally when you compiled IMAP, a file named c-client.a was created. Also put this in the lib/ directory but rename it as libc-client.a.

Note: To build the c-client library with SSL or/and Kerberos support read the docs supplied with the package.

Note: In Mandrake Linux, the IMAP library (libc-client.a) is compiled without Kerberos support. A separate version with SSL (client-PHP4.a) is installed. The library must be recompiled in order to add Kerberos support.

Installation

To get these functions to work, you have to compile PHP with --with-imap[=DIR], where DIR is the c-client install prefix. From our example above, you would use --with-imap=/usr/local/imap-2000b. This location depends on where you created this directory according to the description above. Windows users may include the php_imap.dll DLL in php.ini. IMAP is not supported on systems earlier that Windows 2000. This is because it uses encryption functions in order to enable SSL connections to the mail servers.

Note: Depending how the c-client was configured, you might also need to add --with-imap-ssl=/path/to/openssl/ and/or --with-kerberos=/path/to/kerberos into the PHP configure line.

Warning

The IMAP extension cannot be used in conjuction with the recode, YAZ or Cyrus extensions. This is due to the fact that they both share the same internal symbol.

Runtime Configuration

This extension has no configuration directives defined in php.ini.

Resource Types

Predefined Constants

The constants below are defined by this extension, and will only be available when the extension has either been compiled into PHP or dynamically loaded at runtime.

NIL (integer)
OP_DEBUG (integer)
OP_READONLY (integer): Open mailbox read-only
OP_ANONYMOUS (integer): Don't use or update a .newsrc for news (NNTP only)
OP_SHORTCACHE (integer)
OP_SILENT (integer)
OP_PROTOTYPE (integer)
OP_HALFOPEN (integer): For IMAP and NNTP names, open a connection but don't open a mailbox.
OP_EXPUNGE (integer)
OP_SECURE (integer)
CL_EXPUNGE (integer): silently expunge the mailbox before closing when calling imap_close()
FT_UID (integer): The parameter is a UID
FT_PEEK (integer): Do not set the \Seen flag if not already set
FT_NOT (integer)
FT_INTERNAL (integer): The return string is in internal format, will not canonicalize to CRLF.
FT_PREFETCHTEXT (integer)
ST_UID (integer): The sequence argument contains UIDs instead of sequence numbers
ST_SILENT (integer)
ST_SET (integer)
CP_UID (integer): the sequence numbers contain UIDS
CP_MOVE (integer): Delete the messages from the current mailbox after copying with imap_mail_copy()
SE_UID (integer): Return UIDs instead of sequence numbers
SE_FREE (integer)
SE_NOPREFETCH (integer): Don't prefetch searched messages
SO_FREE (integer)
SO_NOSERVER (integer)
SA_MESSAGES (integer)
SA_RECENT (integer)
SA_UNSEEN (integer)
SA_UIDNEXT (integer)
SA_UIDVALIDITY (integer)
SA_ALL (integer)
LATT_NOINFERIORS (integer): This mailbox has no "children" (there are no mailboxes below this one).
LATT_NOSELECT (integer): This is only a container, not a mailbox - you cannot open it.
LATT_MARKED (integer): This mailbox is marked. Only used by UW-IMAPD.
LATT_UNMARKED (integer): This mailbox is not marked. Only used by UW-IMAPD.
SORTDATE (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): message Date
SORTARRIVAL (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): arrival date
SORTFROM (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): mailbox in first From address
SORTSUBJECT (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): message subject
SORTTO (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): mailbox in first To address
SORTCC (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): mailbox in first cc address
SORTSIZE (integer): Sort criteria for imap_sort(): size of message in octets
TYPETEXT (integer)
TYPEMULTIPART (integer)
TYPEMESSAGE (integer)
TYPEAPPLICATION (integer)
TYPEAUDIO (integer)
TYPEIMAGE (integer)
TYPEVIDEO (integer)
TYPEOTHER (integer)
ENC7BIT (integer)
ENC8BIT (integer)
ENCBINARY (integer)
ENCBASE64 (integer)
ENCQUOTEDPRINTABLE (integer)
ENCOTHER (integer)

RFC2821: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
RFC2822: Standard for ARPA internet text messages.
RFC2060: Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) Version 4rev1.
RFC1939: Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3).
RFC977: Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP).
RFC2076: Common Internet Message Headers.
RFC2045 , RFC2046 , RFC2047 , RFC2048 & RFC2049: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME).

A detailed overview is also available in the books Programming Internet Email by David Wood and Managing IMAP by Dianna Mullet & Kevin Mullet.

Table of Contents
imap_8bit -- Convert an 8bit string to a quoted-printable string
imap_alerts -- This function returns all IMAP alert messages (if any) that have occurred during this page request or since the alert stack was reset
imap_append -- Append a string message to a specified mailbox
imap_base64 -- Decode BASE64 encoded text
imap_binary -- Convert an 8bit string to a base64 string
imap_body -- Read the message body
imap_bodystruct -- Read the structure of a specified body section of a specific message
imap_check -- Check current mailbox
imap_clearflag_full -- Clears flags on messages
imap_close -- Close an IMAP stream
imap_createmailbox -- Create a new mailbox
imap_delete -- Mark a message for deletion from current mailbox
imap_deletemailbox -- Delete a mailbox
imap_errors -- This function returns all of the IMAP errors (if any) that have occurred during this page request or since the error stack was reset
imap_expunge -- Delete all messages marked for deletion
imap_fetch_overview -- Read an overview of the information in the headers of the given message
imap_fetchbody -- Fetch a particular section of the body of the message
imap_fetchheader -- Returns header for a message
imap_fetchstructure -- Read the structure of a particular message
imap_get_quota -- Retrieve the quota level settings, and usage statics per mailbox
imap_get_quotaroot -- Retrieve the quota settings per user
imap_getacl -- Gets the ACL for a given mailbox
imap_getmailboxes -- Read the list of mailboxes, returning detailed information on each one
imap_getsubscribed -- List all the subscribed mailboxes
imap_header -- Alias of imap_headerinfo()
imap_headerinfo -- Read the header of the message
imap_headers -- Returns headers for all messages in a mailbox
imap_last_error -- This function returns the last IMAP error (if any) that occurred during this page request
imap_list -- Read the list of mailboxes
imap_listmailbox -- Alias of imap_list()
imap_listscan -- Read the list of mailboxes, takes a string to search for in the text of the mailbox
imap_listsubscribed -- Alias of imap_lsub()
imap_lsub -- List all the subscribed mailboxes
imap_mail_compose -- Create a MIME message based on given envelope and body sections
imap_mail_copy -- Copy specified messages to a mailbox
imap_mail_move -- Move specified messages to a mailbox
imap_mail -- Send an email message
imap_mailboxmsginfo -- Get information about the current mailbox
imap_mime_header_decode -- Decode MIME header elements
imap_msgno -- This function returns the message sequence number for the given UID
imap_num_msg -- Gives the number of messages in the current mailbox
imap_num_recent -- Gives the number of recent messages in current mailbox
imap_open -- Open an IMAP stream to a mailbox
imap_ping -- Check if the IMAP stream is still active
imap_qprint -- Convert a quoted-printable string to an 8 bit string
imap_renamemailbox -- Rename an old mailbox to new mailbox
imap_reopen -- Reopen IMAP stream to new mailbox
imap_rfc822_parse_adrlist -- Parses an address string
imap_rfc822_parse_headers -- Parse mail headers from a string
imap_rfc822_write_address -- Returns a properly formatted email address given the mailbox, host, and personal info
imap_scanmailbox -- Alias of imap_listscan()
imap_search -- This function returns an array of messages matching the given search criteria
imap_set_quota -- Sets a quota for a given mailbox
imap_setacl -- Sets the ACL for a giving mailbox
imap_setflag_full -- Sets flags on messages
imap_sort -- Sort an array of message headers
imap_status -- This function returns status information on a mailbox other than the current one
imap_subscribe -- Subscribe to a mailbox
imap_thread -- Returns a tree of threaded message
imap_timeout -- Set or fetch imap timeout
imap_uid -- This function returns the UID for the given message sequence number
imap_undelete -- Unmark the message which is marked deleted
imap_unsubscribe -- Unsubscribe from a mailbox
imap_utf7_decode -- Decodes a modified UTF-7 encoded string
imap_utf7_encode -- Converts ISO-8859-1 string to modified UTF-7 text
imap_utf8 -- Converts MIME-encoded text to UTF-8

User Contributed Notes
IMAP, POP3 and NNTP Functions

Anonymous
13-Apr-2005 03:13


If you are having difficulty compiling on netbsd from source and want imap support then you should know that the c-client library is compiled with kerberos support.  Unfortunately gssapi_krb5 and k5crypto is not on the system (or at least wasn't for me).  I didn't have administrative level access to add these libraries so I had to do the following.  I still have to test that it worked 100% but at least it compiled without complaining.



Comment the following segments from the configure script.



Segment 1 -- test for gssapi_krb5 library



  case gssapi_krb5 in

  c|c_r|pthread*) ;;

  *)

    if test "$ext_shared" = "yes"; then

        IMAP_SHARED_LIBADD="$IMAP_SHARED_LIBADD -lgssapi_krb5"

    else

 

 

  case gssapi_krb5 in

  c|c_r|pthread*) ;;

  *)

      LIBS="$LIBS -lgssapi_krb5"

   ;;

  esac



    fi

   ;;

  esac



Segment 2 -- test for k5crypto



  case k5crypto in

  c|c_r|pthread*) ;;

  *)

    if test "$ext_shared" = "yes"; then

        IMAP_SHARED_LIBADD="$IMAP_SHARED_LIBADD -lk5crypto"

    else



  case k5crypto in

  c|c_r|pthread*) ;;

  *)

      LIBS="$LIBS -lk5crypto"

   ;;

  esac



    fi

   ;;

  esac



BTW.  Since I was only compiling for the modules (they have suPHP so I compile all my own modules when I need them) I only dropped this in for the php configure script parameters



./configure --with-imap=shared,xxxxxx --with-kerberos=xxxxxx --with-imap-ssl



This is verified working via an imap test.  One excellent test that I located on the phpbuilder.com site.  Here it is.  Modify the address, port, protocol type, username, and password appropriately.  The post was 5 years old but the script still works fine.  The posters name was "Matthew"



<HTML> 

<HEAD> 

<TITLE>imap_check</TITLE> 

</HEAD> 

<BODY> 

<? 

         //check for new messages 



         $mailbox = imap_open("{localhost/pop3:110}INBOX", 

                 "#username#","#password#"); 



         // Check messages 

         $check = imap_check($mailbox); 

         print("<PRE>"); 

         print("Date most recent message : " . $check->Date); 

         print("<BR>"); 

         print("Connection type : " . $check->Driver); 

         print("<BR>"); 

         print("Name of the mailbox : " . $check->Mailbox); 

         print("<BR>"); 

         print("Number of messages : " . $check->Nmsgs); 

         print("<BR>"); 

         print("Number of recent messages : " . $check->Recent); 

         print("<BR>"); 

         print("</PRE>"); 



         // show headers for messages 



         $index=1; 



         $header = imap_header($mailbox, $index); 

         print("<PRE>"); 

         print("Header Date : " . $header->Date . "<BR>"); 

         print("Header To : " . $header->to) . "<BR>"; 

         print("Header From : " . $header->From . "<BR>"); 

         print("Header cc : " . $header->cc . "<BR>"); 

         print("Header ReplyTo : " . $header->ReplyTo . "<BR>"); 

         print("Header Subject : " . $header->Subject . "<BR></PRE>"); 



         print("<PRE>"); 

         print(imap_body($mailbox,$index)); 

         print("</PRE><HR>"); 



         imap_close($mailbox); 

?> 



</BODY></HTML>

seem dot iges at mail dot ee
15-Feb-2005 08:48


If you like me disvoer that "make slx" fails, but you're damn sure you've openssl installed then, it might be that the lib and include paths on your distro are different then the defaults provided in the imap-2004a (or imap-XXXXx). To modify go to dir ../imap-2004a/src/osdep/unix and edit the section (shown below) in the Makefile



# Extended flags needed for SSL.  You may need to modify.



#SSLDIR=/usr/local/ssl

SSLDIR=/etc/ssl

SSLCERTS=$(SSLDIR)/certs

SSLKEYS=$(SSLCERTS)

#SSLINCLUDE=$(SSLDIR)/include

SSLINCLUDE=/usr/include/openssl

#SSLLIB=$(SSLDIR)/lib

SSLLIB=/usr/lib



SSLCRYPTO=-lcrypto



Commented out SSLDIR, SSLINCLUDE and SSLIB are defaults and the uncommented are valid paths for Slackware (10.0/10.1).

You should also check your ld.so.conf for valid paths.

antivert
13-Jan-2005 11:55


Note that is not not necessary to disable SSL in the IMAP compile to make it work with PHP 5.0.3.



1. Compile IMAP with SSL support for your system:



cd /path/to/imap/source/

make <system type> (ldb, lnx, etc)

mkdir include

mkdir lib



2. Make links in IMAP source directory: 



cd /path/to/imap/source/c-client

cp *.h ../include/

cp *.c ../lib/

cp c-client.a ../lib/libc-client.a



3. Compile PHP with SSL support,  --with-imap=/path/to/imap/source/ . If SSL support fails, you'll get a configure-time error that IMAP doesn't work. This is a lie, you just need to get SSL support working in PHP. On certain linux systems, with OpenSSL 0.9.7, this means adding --with-openssl=/usr (if the OpenSSL files are in /usr/include/openssl/) instead of the proper directory containing the OpenSSL files. For some reason, giving a parent directory makes PHP able to find the OpenSSL include files.



4. PHP should build. 



Alternately, you can disable SSL during the IMAP build, as per the previous directions posted here.

amit dot gupta at prudence-india dot com
18-Nov-2004 03:44


I faced problem in compiling imap with php-5.0.2 release version. Then following commands on snapshot version solved my problem



# tar -zxvf imap-2004b.DEV.tar.Z

# cd imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/

# make lnp SSLTYPE=none

# cp -r /usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/c-client/*.h /usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/include/



# cp -r /usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/c-client/*.c /usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/lib/



# ln -s /usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/c-client/c-client.a /usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435/lib/libc-client.a



# tar -zxvf php5-STABLE-200411180530.tar.gz



# cd php5-STABLE-200411180530



./configure  --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs --enable-shared --with-mod_charset --enable-force-cgi-redirect --enable-fastcgi --enable-magic-quotes --with-openssl  --with-zlib  --enable-bcmath  --enable-calendar --with-curl  --with-curlwrappers  --enable-dba   --with-gdbm --with-cdb  --with-inifile  --with-flatfile  --enable-dbase   --enable-dbx     --enable-dio --with-fam  --enable-filepro  --enable-ftp  --with-ldap  --enable-mbstring --with-mysql=/usr/include  --with-zlib-dir  --enable-shmop --enable-soap  --enable-sockets    --enable-sysvmsg   --enable-sysvsem  --enable-sysvshm  --enable-wddx --with-pic --enable-versioning  --with-pgsql --with-java=/usr/java/jdk1.5.0/  --with-imap=/usr/local/imap-2004b.DEV.SNAP-0411051435 --with-kerberos



# make 



# make install



Thus, php compiled sucessufully with imap support on fedora core 1.

sirber at gmail dot com
17-Nov-2004 01:42


Here's a function to create a full structure with decoded bodies. Usefull for handeling complex MIME messages.



// Construction de la structure du message

$struct = imap_fetchstructure($mbox, $mnum);

// Recherche des body et d�codage de la structure

buildparts($mbox, $mnum, $struct);



function buildparts ($mbox, $mnum, &$struct, $pno = "") 

{

    switch ($struct->type)

    {

        case 1: // multipart

            // Recherche des sous partie

            $i = 1;

            while (list($j) = each ($struct->parts))

                buildparts ($mbox, $mnum, $struct->parts[$j], $pno . "." . $i++);

            break;

        case 2: // message

            // D�codage de la sous partie (et de ses sous parties)

            buildparts ($mbox, $mnum, $struct->parts[0], $pno);

            break;

        default:

            $part = substr ($pno, 1);



            // On save le part_number

            $struct->part_number = $part;

            

            // On fetch le body de la partie

            $struct->body = imap_fetchbody($mbox, $mnum, $part);

            

            // On le d�code

            if($struct->encoding == 3) 

                $struct->body = imap_base64($struct->body);

            elseif($struct->encoding == 4)

                $struct->body = imap_qprint($struct->body);

            

            // On d�code les charset

            if ($struct->paraneters[0]->attribute == "CHARSET")

            {

                $charset = $struct->paraneters[0]->value;

                if ($charset == "utf-8")

                    $struct->body = utf8_decode($struct->body);

                if ($charset == "utf-7")

                    $struct->body = imap_utf7_decode($struct->body);

            }

            break;

    }

}

Pete Spicer, sleeping [at] myperch.org
17-Jul-2004 06:19


I have a pretty much stock set-up of SuSE 8.1 Personal (Apache, PHP et al built by me) and IMAP-2004 refused to build for me.



What I found was, using the make lsu (for SuSE) almost worked built I was getting odd build results, i.e. make failures.



The problem? GCC 3.2. If you don't have an older GCC available, please install one! I installed the gcc_old package from SuSE and built with the following command:



CC=gcc297 make lsu SSLTYPE=none



The result was a perfect build. So if you are getting errors, please try an earlier build of GCC.

Tomas V.V.Cox
11-May-2004 09:15


For compiling this extension without compiling imap from sources I did (this was mandrake):



Install the following rpms:

imap

imap-devel

openssl

openssl-devel

krb5

krb5-devel

pam

pam-devel



Do the trick:

# mkdir /usr/include/imap/lib

# cp /usr/lib/libc-client-PHP4.a /usr/include/imap/lib/libc-client.a



And the configure line:

./configure <options> --with-imap=/usr/include/imap --with-imap-ssl



(don't forget --enable-pear ;)

sysadmin at grmtech dot com
27-Mar-2004 07:01


The manual mentions:

"From the c-client directory from your IMAP source tree, copy all the *.h files into include/ and all the *.c files into lib/. Additionally when you compiled IMAP, a file named c-client.a was created. Also put this in the lib/ directory but rename it as libc-client.a. 

"



A. Please do not copy rather make symbolic links like this:

ln -s c-client include

ln -s c-client lib



B. You do not need to copy c-client.a to libc-client.a.

The make command used to compile the imap-2002e source code creates the symbolic link from c-client.a to libc-client.a



The imap client version used for the above two points is:

1. imap-2002e



my 2 cents,



sysadmin

http://www.grmtech.com

peder at godvik dot no
09-Mar-2004 11:24


Additionally to Mauricio's procedure; You must check the Makefile to find the correct system type that you are compiling on. Mauricio's example assumes you are using Linux. -Check the README for imap-xxxx for further details.

Fjor
14-Feb-2004 08:50


Additionally to Mauricio's procedure, I had to make a symlink to the c-client library this way:



cd imap-xxxx/c-client

ln -s c-client.a libc-client.a



(Tested with imap-200e)



Fjor (GDL/Mexico)

dev at puertocity dot com
26-Nov-2003 11:38


A tip for imap support installation:



With SSL support:

------------------

tar -zxf imap-xxxxx.tar.Z

cd imap-xxxxx

make slx

ln -sf c-client include

ln -sf c-client lib

cd ..

tar -jxf php-4.3.x.tar.bz2

cd php-4.3.x

./configure --with-imap=../imap-xxxxx --with-imap-ssl=/path-to-openssl



With out SSL support:

---------------------

tar -zxf imap-xxxxx.tar.Z

cd imap-xxxxx

make slx SSLTYPE=none

ln -sf c-client include

ln -sf c-client lib

cd ..

tar -jxf php-4.3.x.tar.bz2

cd php-4.3.x

./configure --with-imap=../imap-xxxxx



Good Luck

Mauricio

millz at incogen dot com
10-Oct-2003 07:19


I experienced a problem when adding IMAP support into PHP.  The php configure script would die when trying to see if "IMAP Works..." and the config.log would complain about libc-client.a references.  

It was similar to the problem reported here: 

http://lists.horde.org/archives/imp/Week-of-Mon-20030915/034692.html  



I resolved it by compiling IMAP like this (replace <ARCH> with the proper OS type for your system, get that from the top of the Makefile):



make <ARCH> SSLTYPE=none



That turned off the SSL support in the IMAP files and seemed to resolve my php compile problem.



BTW, I also followed the directions about making a new /usr/local/imap... directory that are mentioned at the top of the page.

k3nny at squidart dot co dot za
31-Jul-2003 08:02


After having numerous problems compiling PHP with IMAP support, both PHP problems and IMAP problems I found this simple solution to the problem, which I've tried with several versions of IMAP and all worked perfectly!



tar -zxf imap-xxxxx.tar.Z

cd imap-xxxxx

make slx

ln -sf c-client include

ln -sf c-client lib

cd ..

tar -jxf php-4.3.x.tar.bz2

cd php-4.3.x

./configure --with-imap=../imap-xxxxx



It worked everytime for me, hope it does for you!



Kenneth

designer at bs-dee dot org
09-Mar-2003 07:27


The only c-client that has worked 100% with php is



ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/old/imap-2001.FINAL.tar.Z



DO NOT DOWNLOAD 2002 B its BUGGY!

keeper at odi dot com dot br
01-Mar-2003 03:37


For those working with mail talke a look ate the pear class


Mime decode:





http://pear.php.net/package/Mail_Mime





Dotrinador

naveed at php dot net
12-Jan-2003 10:49


Beware!

If you are trying to make a connection with POP3 mailbox,then some of IMAP functions will not work correctly as you might expecting .This is because the difference of workings in POP3 and IMAP protocols.

These functions work correctly for IMAP mailboxes but some of the fnctions will return nothing, when connected to a POP3 mailbox.(even no error message).

duckel at electroporn dot de
22-May-2002 02:16


please don't copy the .h files in the system include directory! the unix.h file from the washington.edu c-client conflicts with another file called unix.h

make a dir called "imap" in either /usr/include or /usr/local/include or whatever you wish, copy the header files there and the .a file prefix'ish in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib or whatever you used for the include files.

then tell configure with --with-imap=/usr the "prefix" of your installation. 

then works without problem ;)

netshadow at madpoets dot org
03-Nov-2001 04:42


I just found something a bit bizarre.  I was having problems with the pages taking too long to load (15-20sec) when they opened an imap connection.  I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was wrong.





Turns out it was quite simple.  I was letting it default to 143 for the port.  When i specified the port number (i.e. {localhost:143} rather than {localhost} )  It reduced page load time to a few seconds.

raoul at runtheotherway dot com
22-Oct-2001 10:11


I have found the order in which you connect to you POP server with IMAP 2000 and your database with PostgreSQL 7.1.2 can cause problems.





Make sure that you connect first to your POP server then get your db connection. This will prevent you from getting an invalid stream from imap_open().