imap_headerinfo

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

imap_headerinfo — Read the header of the message

Descrierea

imap_headerinfo ( resource $imap , int $message_num [, int $from_length = 0 [, int $subject_length = 0 ]] ) : stdClass|false

Gets information about the given message number by reading its headers.

Parametri

imap_stream: Un flux IMAP întors de imap_open().
message_num: The message number
from_length: Number of characters for the fetchfrom property. Must be greater than or equal to zero.
subject_length: Number of characters for the fetchsubject property Must be greater than or equal to zero.
defaulthost

Valorile întoarse

Returns false on error or, if successful, the information in an object with following properties:

toaddress - full to: line, up to 1024 characters
to - an array of objects from the To: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
fromaddress - full from: line, up to 1024 characters
from - an array of objects from the From: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
ccaddress - full cc: line, up to 1024 characters
cc - an array of objects from the Cc: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
bccaddress - full bcc: line, up to 1024 characters
bcc - an array of objects from the Bcc: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
reply_toaddress - full Reply-To: line, up to 1024 characters
reply_to - an array of objects from the Reply-To: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
senderaddress - full sender: line, up to 1024 characters
sender - an array of objects from the Sender: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
return_pathaddress - full Return-Path: line, up to 1024 characters
return_path - an array of objects from the Return-Path: line, with the following properties: personal, adl, mailbox, and host
remail -
date - The message date as found in its headers
Date - Same as date
subject - The message subject
Subject - Same as subject
in_reply_to -
message_id -
newsgroups -
followup_to -
references -
Recent - R if recent and seen, N if recent and not seen, ' ' if not recent.
Unseen - U if not seen AND not recent, ' ' if seen OR not seen and recent
Flagged - F if flagged, ' ' if not flagged
Answered - A if answered, ' ' if unanswered
Deleted - D if deleted, ' ' if not deleted
Draft - X if draft, ' ' if not draft
Msgno - The message number
MailDate -
Size - The message size
udate - mail message date in Unix time
fetchfrom - from line formatted to fit from_length characters
fetchsubject - subject line formatted to fit subject_length characters

Istoricul schimbărilor

Versiune	Descriere
8.0.0	The unused `defaulthost` parameter has been removed.

A se vedea și

imap_fetch_overview() - Read an overview of the information in the headers of the given message

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User Contributed Notes 10 notes

down

andyltm ¶

15 years ago


When I was testing imap_headerinfo() with an e-mail that had multiple recipients (multiple e-mails in to to: and/or cc: field), I noticed that imap_headerinfo() was failing hard for me on PHP 5.2.10-2ubuntu6.4 with Suhosin-Patch 0.9.7 (cli).

Rather than providing me an array with each and every e-mail address listed in the to and/or cc fields, it was only providing me the first listed.  This was disappointing.

   [to] => Array
        (   
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (   
                    [mailbox] => game
                    [host] => blunts.com
                )
        )

Luckily, there was a cool workaround to this problem:

imap_rfc822_parse_headers(imap_fetchheader( string ); which subsequentally worked like a nice little pet would:

   [to] => Array
        (   
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (   
                    [mailbox] => game
                    [host] => blunts.com
                )
            [1] => stdClass Object
                (   
                    [mailbox] => dutch
                    [host] => masters.com
                )
        )

TL;DR: 
So in other words, instead of imap_headerinfo() use imap_rfc822_parse_headers(imap_fetchheader()).

Hope this helps anyone else that runs into this issue from now into the future.  This post was suggested by people in #PHP on FreeNode IRC.

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jahservant 13 at gmail dot com ¶

15 years ago


I'm not entirely sure why this is, but if you loop through all of the messages in a mailbox, calling imap_header() each time, you can significantly increase performance by calling imap_headers() first.

Compare this:
<?php
     $imap = imap_open("{my.server.com:143}INBOX", "user", "pass");
     $n_msgs = imap_num_msg($imap);
     $s = microtime(true);
     for ($i=0; $i<$n_msgs; $i++) {
          $header = imap_header($imap, $i);
     }
     $e = microtime(true);
     echo ($e - $s);
     imap_close($imap);
?>

With this:
<?php
     $imap = imap_open("{my.server.com:143}INBOX", "user", "pass");
     $n_msgs = imap_num_msg($imap);
  /****** adding this line: ******/
     imap_headers($imap)
  /***************************/
     $s = microtime(true);
     for ($i=0; $i<$n_msgs; $i++) {
          $header = imap_header($imap, $i);
     }
     $e = microtime(true);
     echo ($e - $s);
     imap_close($imap);
?>

The performance difference, as I have tested on several boxes, connecting to several different servers, is that the second code snippet ALWAYS takes 1/2 the time, if not less.

Perhaps it is because imap_headers() retrieves all of the messages on one connection, whereas imap_header() has to make a new fetch request for each message??  I'm not sure WHY it is faster if imap_headers() is called first, but I do know that it is, so I thought I'd pass on the knowledge.  If anyone knows why this is, please let me know....

down

scott at fuzzygroup dot com ¶

22 years ago


If you want to extract values from to, from, or other header elements, they are an object and you need to loop over them i.e.

$header = imap_header($mbox, $message_id);
$from = $header->from;
foreach ($from as $id => $object) {
    $fromname = $object->personal;
    $fromaddress = $object->mailbox . "@" . $object->host;
}

Would give you two variables for the friendly from and the smtp from address

Thanks to www.natrak.net for help with this

down

php at our-software dot com ¶

8 years ago


Please Note : imap_headerinfo only returns a subset of the headers, rather than the entire thing.

Among other things, this means it only shows the first recipient from the "to" section of the email, rather than all recipients.

If you're not seeing something you expected to, you'll be better off using

$hdr_raw = imap_fetchheader($mbox, $mailid);
$hdr = imap_rfc822_parse_headers($hdr_raw);

then you'll see the full set of headers, and be able to do more with it.

down

Murray ¶

10 years ago


An email without a subject line will not generate the 'subject' property.

Before using the 'subject' property you should test for it.
if (property_exists($header, 'subject')) echo $header->subject;

down

milosh ¶

11 years ago


I did some testing on using imap_headerinfo() function and I am very confused with the results.

On small mailboxes, getting data for 30 messages takes about 0.5 secs. On mailboxes with approximately 500 messages it takes about 7 secs to retrieve data for the same number of messages.

Why would the size of mailbox had anything to do with the time needed to retrieve the header of the single email message? Mailboxes are on the same account.

Next, If you measure every call to imap_headerinfo() function the result are even stranger! First and then every 22th call to the imap_headerinfo() function takes 10000 times more that the others. Example: the first call takes about 0.39 secs, then other 20 calls take about 0.0001 secs, then 22th call takes about 0.47 secs, then other 20 calls about 0.00004, and so on.

After some more research there is something else that came up.

If you use:

$message_header[$i] = imap_headerinfo($mbox, $i + 1);

it takes about 0.4 secs for every 22th call and about 0.0001 sec for other calls.

However, you would expect the same results with:

$message_header[$i] = imap_headerinfo($mbox, 30 - $i);

But, in this case it takes about 0.2 secs for every call!

The only difference here is that in the second example headers are retrieved in the reversed message order (from the 30th to the 1st) and for some reason it greatly affects the time needed for the operation. Strange, or is it just me?

down

trinkaus at ttNetz dot de ¶

15 years ago


When i try to access the same mailbox through pop3 and through imap i get different update infomations.

1. Using imap 
header->udate is not the same as strtotime($header->date)
<?php
$mBox = imap_open("{host:143/imap/novalidate-cert}INBOX}", $username, $password); // open as imap
$header = imap_header($mBox, 1); // get first mails header
echo $header->udate;
echo strtotime($header->date);
?>

1. Using pop3
header->udate is the same as strtotime($header->date)
<?php
$mBox = imap_open("{host:110/pop3/novalidate-cert}INBOX}", $username, $password); // open as pop3
$header = imap_header($mBox, 1); // get first mails header
echo $header->udate;
echo strtotime($header->date);
?>

I do not know why this is so, but for this reason, i use strtotime($header->date) together with other values to create my own message-UID because this seems to work independent from the protocol.

down

ron at NOSPAM dot clicks2hits dot com ¶

16 years ago


Simple little code for checking gmail using headerinfo

<?php /* Created on: 11/3/2008 By Ron Hickey 6tx.net/gmail_mod 
Gmail mod for admin panels or you can edit it and convert html results to XML for personal RSS reader */ 

// enter gmail username below e.g.--> $m_username = "yourusername";
$m_username = "";

// enter gmail password below e.g.--> $m_password = "yourpword";
$m_password = "";

// enter the number of unread messages you want to display from mailbox or 
//enter 0 to display all unread messages e.g.--> $m_acs = 0; 
$m_acs = 15; 

// How far back in time do you want to search for unread messages - one month = 0 , two weeks = 1, one week = 2, three days = 3,
// one day = 4, six hours = 5 or one hour = 6 e.g.--> $m_t = 6;
$m_t = 2;

//----------->Nothing More to edit below
//open mailbox..........please
$m_mail = imap_open ("{imap.gmail.com:993/imap/ssl}INBOX", $m_username . "@gmail.com", $m_password)

// or throw a freakin error............you pig
or die("ERROR: " . imap_last_error());

// unix time gone by or is it bye.....its certanly not bi.......or is it? ......I dunno fooker 
$m_gunixtp = array(2592000, 1209600, 604800, 259200, 86400, 21600, 3600);

// Date to start search
$m_gdmy = date('d-M-Y', time() - $m_gunixtp[$m_t]); 

//search mailbox for unread messages since $m_t date 
$m_search=imap_search ($m_mail, 'UNSEEN SINCE ' . $m_gdmy . '');

//If mailbox is empty......Display "No New Messages", else........ You got mail....oh joy
if($m_search < 1){ 
$m_empty = "No New Messages";} 
else {

// Order results starting from newest message
rsort($m_search);

//if m_acs > 0 then limit results
if($m_acs > 0){ 
array_splice($m_search, $m_acs);
} 

//loop it 
foreach ($m_search as $what_ever) { 

//get imap header info for obj thang 
$obj_thang = imap_headerinfo($m_mail, $what_ever);

//Then spit it out below.........if you dont swallow 
echo "<body bgcolor=D3D3D3><div align=center><br /><font face=Arial size=2 color=#800000>Message ID# " . $what_ever . "</font>

<table bgcolor=#D3D3D3 width=700 border=1 bordercolor=#000000 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>
<tr>
<td><table width=100% border=0>
<tr>
<td><table width=100% border=0>
<tr>
<td bgcolor=#F8F8FF><font face=Arial size=2 color=#800000>Date:</font> <font face=Arial size=2 color=#000000>" . date("F j, Y, g:i a", $obj_thang->udate) . "</font></td>
<td bgcolor=#F8F8FF><font face=Arial size=2 color=#800000>From:</font> <font face=Arial size=2 color=#000000>" . $obj_thang->fromaddress . "</font></td>
<td bgcolor=#F8F8FF><font face=Arial size=2 color=#800000>To:</font> <font face=Arial size=2 color=#000000>" . $obj_thang->toaddress . " </font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr><tr><td bgcolor=#F8F8FF><font face=Arial size=2 color=#800000>Subject:</font> <font face=Arial size=2 color=#000000>" . $obj_thang->Subject . "</font></td></tr><tr>
</tr>
</table></td>
</tr>
</table><a href=http://gmail.com target=_blank><font face=Arial size=2 color=#800000>Login to read message</a></font><br /></div></body>";

}} echo "<div align=center><font face=Arial size=4 color=#800000><b>" . $m_empty . "</b></font></div>";
//close mailbox bi by bye
imap_close($m_mail);
?>

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-2

php at spacefish dot biz ¶

16 years ago


I had to pass the msgid as array($msgid) instead of an integer. the error "Invalid messageID" is generated if i pass an integer.

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-3

aeolianmeson at exoyiga dot blitzeclipse dot com ¶

16 years ago


I typically use UID's to identify messages, and recently discovered that the headers I had been pulling using this function and a message-number didn't match the UID's. Instead of worrying about it, I just began using imap_fetchheader() and imap_ rfc822_ parse_ headers() on its output. The only significant difference I immediately noticed was that there is no "udate" property, so I assigned one with the result of strtotime() on the 'date' property.

Dustin

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