Mac Forum / Programming / Perl / May 2004

Oh, you are so right.  I guess Panther is just
stingier with its memory, and I never got bitten by
this before!

Thanks!!

XB

   
       

How do I set up a perl program such as the one below to check mail
without hard coding the password in the code? I want to run the job
automatically via cron, but I I do not like the idea of leaving the
password lying around in clear text. I am pretty new to Perl as you
can see from the quality of the code, but it seems the right choice
for this application, except for the passwords. -Chuck-

#!/usr/bin/perl

#------------------------------------------------------
# Read LetterRip Daily Statistics email and process
#   bounce addresses.
#
# Written April 2004 by Chuck Rice
#------------------------------------------------------

use Mail::Mailer;
use Net::POP3;
use strict;

my $mail_server = "mail.wildrice.com";
my $username = "xxxxxxxx";
my $password = "xxxxxxxx";
my $pop;
my $line;
my @bouncer;
my $listMsgCnt;
my @fields;
my $mailer;
my $from_address = "Chuck\@WildRice.com";
my $to_address = "requests\@lists.WildRice.com,Chuck\@WildRice.com";
my $subject = "Unsubscribe Bouncers";
my $body = "user chuck\@wildrice.com\rpass xxxxxxxx\n";

$pop = Net::POP3->new($mail_server)
    or die "Can't open connection to $mail_server : $!\n";
   
defined ($pop->login($username, $password))
    or die "Can't authenticate: $!\n";
   
my $messages = $pop->list
    or die "Can't get list of undeleted messages: $!\n";
   
foreach my $msgid (keys %$messages) {
    print $msgid . "\r";
    my $message = $pop->get($msgid);
    unless (defined $message) {
        warn "Couldn't fetch $msgid from server: $!\n";
        next;
    }
    # $message is a reference to an array of lines
    $pop->delete($msgid);

    foreach $_ (@$message) {

       if (/Message posts/) {
          @fields = split(/\s+/, $_);
          $listMsgCnt = $fields[2];
          }    
     
       if (/unsub \"/) {
          my @fields = split(/\s+/, $_);
          $fields[$#fields+1] = 0;
          $fields[$#fields+1] = 0;
          $fields[$#fields+1] = 0;
          $fields[$#fields+1] = 0;
          $fields[$#fields+1] = 0;
          $fields[$#fields+1] = 0;
          my $failCnt = $fields[5];
          if ($listMsgCnt <= 0 . $failCnt) {
              $bouncer[$#bouncer+1] = $_;
              }
          }  
    }
}
foreach $line (@bouncer) {
    print $line;
    $body .= $line;
    }

$mailer = Mail::Mailer->new("sendmail");
$mailer->open({ From    => $from_address,
                To      => $to_address,
                Subject => $subject
              })
    or die "Can't open: $!\n";
print $mailer $body;
$mailer->close();
print "Done";