Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers by Michael Schrenk

Author:Michael Schrenk
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: COMPUTERS / Internet / General
Publisher: No Starch Press
Published: 2009-08-19T23:00:00+00:00

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[48] Due to the ridiculous amounts of spam on newsgroups, scripts for posting articles on newsgroups were deliberately omitted from this chapter. However, between the scripts used as examples in this chapter and the original NNTP RFC, you should be able to figure out how to post articles to newsgroups on your own.

Chapter 15. WEBBOTS THAT READ EMAIL

When a webbot can read email, it's easier for it to communicate with the outside world.[49] Webbots capable of reading email can take instruction via email commands, share data with handheld devices like BlackBerries and Palm PDAs, and filter messages for content.

For example, if package-tracking information is sent to an email account that a webbot can access, the webbot can parse incoming email from the carrier to track delivery status. Such a webbot could also send email warnings when shipments are late, communicate shipping charges to your corporate accounting software, or create reports that analyze a company's use of overnight shipping.

The POP3 Protocol

Of the many protocols for reading email from mail servers, I selected Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) for this task because of its simplicity and near-universal support among mail servers. POP3 instructions are also easy to perform in any Telnet or standard TCP/IP terminal program.[50] The ability to use Telnet to execute POP3 commands will provide an understanding of POP3 commands, which we will later convert into PHP routines that any webbot may execute.

Logging into a POP3 Mail Server

Listing 15-1 shows how to connect to a POP3 mail server though a Telnet client. Simply enter telnet, followed by the mail server name and the port number (which is always 110 for POP3). The mail server should reply with a message similar to the one in Listing 15-1.

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