Looking for a nitty gritty REXX Email handler

Hello,

In my search for an email handler with complexities the likes of which
Outlook Express does not have, it was suggested by a PHP person saying
PHP could easily do the job. But I don't have the time to learn such.
But he did ask if I knew a language that might suffice.

Well, I know REXX reasonably well and use it extensively. But have
never used it to talk to the outside world, specifically POP3 servers
for incoming emails and SMTP servers for outgoing emails. So I am
wondering if anyone in this group can give me some clues, pointers as
to the feasibility of REXX capabilities in this respect.

I have an XP Pro laptop permanently wireless connected to the
Internet, in particular to my Outlook Express email program. Thereby I
continuously receive emails without any intervention, they 'arrive'
unbeckoned. To read and act thereon I have to intervene which is what
I wish to avoid. In short I am endeavouring to automate a process on
my computer whereby I can offer an unattended service.

What I need is a 'REXX1 pgm' (which should poll my ISP's POP3 server
every ten minutes), to receive 'n' emails, put them in separate files
in a specified directory each with a unique filename being a unique
number | the sender's email address e.g. c:\emailin\001jdoe@ink.ca).

My REXX2 then polls this directory and acts on each file and prepares
a text file to be sent back to 'jdoe'. REXX2 is within my skill range.

REXX3 then needs to send the text file to jdoe@ink.ca as an
attachment.

Question is: are REXX1 and REXX3 impossible | difficult | easy to
write, are there examples anywhere?

Any help welcome and I thankyou in advance.

Graham


Example of a typical incoming email:
-----------------------------------
From: John Doe
Subject: CONRAD

4LW=clna
01  OLDFOR-RECORD-DESCRIPTION.
05  OLDFOR-REC.
*          10  FILLER                          PIC X(480).
10  FILLER                          PIC X(528).
05  OLDFOR-FIREH-REC REDEFINES OLDFOR-REC.
10  OLDFOR-IN-SGMNT.
15  FILLER                    PIC X(02).
A1                  15  OLDFOR-IN-CUST  PIC X(14).
15  OLDFOR-IN-INIT     PIC X(12).
15  OLDFOR-IN-AMT    PIC 9(8)V99.
etc. possibly 1000 lines

Example of an attachment to the response email:
----------------------------------------------
*``STEPL99
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. STEPL99.
DATE-WRITTEN. APR 1989.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SOURCE-COMPUTER.   IBM-370.
OBJECT-COMPUTER.   IBM-370.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
etc. possibly 5000+ lines



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Graham Hobbs wrote:
> Question is: are REXX1 and REXX3 impossible | difficult | easy to
> write, are there examples anywhere?
>
> Any help welcome and I thankyou in advance.

If you are willing to do some work it is not all that difficult to
communicate with a pop server. The real work is what to do with the
emails once you have them, like store them in some kind of database or
file. It sounds like you have a plan for that so this ma be a Simple
Matter of Programming (SMoP).

While I don't have any code that communicates with a pop server I do
have code that communicates with an SMTP server. The concepts are the
same for both so you would just need to figure out the protocol and
program it as desired. My SMTP code is a set of ooRexx classes that deal
with Mime types, sockets  and the SMTP server. You can find them at
http://oorexx.svn.sourceforge.net/v...utils/internet/

They should give you some ideas about how to get started.

As to the pop protocol, I would highly suggest a reference book like
"TCP/IP Protocol Suite" by Forouzan (pub McGraw Hill). It is an
expensive book but there is no way I would ever be able to survive the
TCP/IP world without it.

I wish you well in your endevor.

David Ashley
ooRexx Project Team

Graham Hobbs <ghobbs@cdpwise.net> wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> In my search for an email handler with complexities the likes of which
> Outlook Express does not have, it was suggested by a PHP person saying
> PHP could easily do the job. But I don't have the time to learn such.
> But he did ask if I knew a language that might suffice.

Python has this sort of thing built-in.  Python can be written in a
procedural way or using OO paradigms.  As a long-term REXX user I'm not
finding Python too hard to fiddle with, except that it has so much built-in
that it's hard not to reinvent wheels.

[The main reason I'm looking at Python at all is for cross-platform
compatibility, plus a desire to stop my brain mouldering.]

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

On Mar 19, 6:13 pm, David Ashley <dash...@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> Graham Hobbs wrote: 
> 
>
...
> While I don't have any code that communicates with a pop server
...
> David Ashley
> ooRexx Project Team

For an idea of how to write a pop server in Rexx you could look at
Toby Thurston's macros for X2.
http://www.wildfire.dircon.co.uk/

hth

Jon

> What I need is a 'REXX1 pgm' (which should poll my ISP's POP3 server
> every ten minutes), to receive 'n' emails, put them in separate files
> in a specified directory each with a unique filename

Why does this part have to be written in 100% Rexx? Try e.g. SOUP
instead, and save yourself some very avoidable troubles...



---

On 03/19/08 08:27 am, Graham Hobbs wrote:
>
> Well, I know REXX reasonably well and use it extensively. But have
> never used it to talk to the outside world, specifically POP3 servers
> for incoming emails and SMTP servers for outgoing emails. So I am
> wondering if anyone in this group can give me some clues, pointers as
> to the feasibility of REXX capabilities in this respect.
>
Rexxmail may work for you:
<http://www.degeus.com/rexxmail/>

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

OK tell me more please?
Googling tells me SOUP is thick and thin:-)


On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:00:05 +0200, spamgate@hotmai1.com (ML) wrote:

> 
>
>Why does this part have to be written in 100% Rexx? Try e.g. SOUP
>instead, and save yourself some very avoidable troubles...
>
>
>
>---


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

I downloaded it but it only talks about OS/2 (which I dearly used to
love).
Cheers.

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:31:06 -0700, Jim Moe
<jmm-list.AXSPAMGN@sohnen-moe.com> wrote:

>On 03/19/08 08:27 am, Graham Hobbs wrote: 
>  Rexxmail may work for you:
><http://www.degeus.com/rexxmail/>


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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

> OK tell me more please?
> Googling tells me SOUP is thick and thin:-)

S (Soup, Smtp) is Simple, and so is Rexx. No need to re-invent wheels,
unless out of pure interest. Assuming DOS (/Win32):

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps...il/souper15.zip
http://combee.techwood.org/old/soup12.html (a.o.)

Don't go that nuts with the docs. It's probably far easier to download
an e-mail with it ("souper95 -n"), and take a closer look at the files
created.



---

In article <7HE6HlQNAxnJ090yn@hotmai1.com>, spamgate@hotmai1.com (ML) wrote:
>
>S (Soup, Smtp) is Simple, and so is Rexx. No need to re-invent wheels,
>unless out of pure interest. ...

I vote for SOUP, too. It was designed to be "wrapped" in a script (batch,
Bash, REXX etc).
I've been using VSOUP (multi-threaded SOUP for OS/2) for about 10 years.
I have a complex environment (4 news servers, 2 mail servers). I use REXX to
manage multiple invocations of VSOUP to download from all servers at once,
and more REXX to filter the results on import into my news/mail reader
(YARN). Yet more REXX parses the outgoing mail and sets a custom From: line
for each destination, then manages the upload to multiple hosts. If you have
any questions about SOUP usage and file formats etc, feel free to ask.

--
Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand
"New interface closely resembles Presentation Manager,
preparing you for the wonders of OS/2!"
-- Advertisement on the box for Microsoft Windows 2.11 for 286