Parsing mbox files with Windows Php

From	Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.php
Subject	Parsing mbox files with Windows Php
Date	2013-05-24 15:57 -0600
Organization	cycletourist.com
Message-ID	<knongf$e81$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)

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I have been slowly building a Php/MySQL based IMAP email client.  The 
Php IMAP functions are well documented and easy to use.  I store 
messages in a MySQL database (attachments in the file system) for ease 
of organization, maintenance, backup and searching.  I like it enough 
that I want to add my existing archive of email in Thunderbird.  To do 
so, I need to parse mbox files and extract message headers, parts, and 
attachments.  Thankfully, the Php IMAP functions can be used to open and 
parse an mbox file (or even a single .eml file) as well as opening a 
stream to the server.

Using this functionality I can write a script to run on my WAMP 
development machine that reads the Thunderbird folder structure, parses 
the mbox files and saves individual messages along with their 
folder/subfolder path in the Thunderbird folder hierarchy.  It should be 
as easy as pointing it to the top of the folder structure and letting it 
do all the work from there.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Windows Php binary is unable to 
connect to an mbox file, so to make my job easy, I would have to upload 
the entire folder structure (it is about 200MBs) to my shared host and 
process it there.  I would much rather "toy around" with this process on 
my Windows development machine and not on the shared host.

There is a Php bug filed for this, but it was determined that the 
"underlying c-client function is unable to open a file."  
https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=39880 - closed as "not a bug."

$mbox = imap_open('pathto/mboxfile', '', '') // works on *nix, but not 
on Windows.
 - Warning: imap_open(): Couldn't open stream mboxfiles/Inbox ....
 - Notice: Unknown: Can't open mailbox mboxfiles/Inbox: no such mailbox 
(errflg=2) in Unknown on line 0.
   (This second error is the one coming from the underlying c-client 
function.)

I believe this is a dead end but want to check if anyone has happened to 
figure out a way to make this work in Windows - or if you know of a 
separate mbox file parser that would be fairly simple to integrate with 
my current Php IMAP based scripts - dependent on the output of 
imap_fetchstructure, imap_headerinfo, imap_fetchbody(parts).

If not, I will probably build a form that lets me select individual 
(smaller) sections of the folder hierarchy to process individually 
(tedious and prone to error).

-- 
*****************************
 Chuck Anderson • Boulder, CO
  http://cycletourist.com
 Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop In
*****************************

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Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-24 15:57 -0600
  Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-25 00:40 +0200
    Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-24 21:17 -0600
    Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2013-05-25 09:30 +0200
      Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-25 16:19 +0200
        Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2013-05-25 17:19 +0200
          Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-25 17:48 +0200
            Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2013-05-25 20:09 +0200
  Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-24 19:16 -0400
    Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-24 17:40 -0600
    Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop@ninehells.com> - 2013-05-25 10:50 -0500
  Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Luuk <luuk@invalid.lan> - 2013-05-25 18:08 +0200
  Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop@ninehells.com> - 2013-05-25 11:14 -0500
    Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-25 16:39 -0600
      Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-26 23:11 -0400
        Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-27 14:13 +0200
          Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-27 08:49 -0400
            Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-27 15:25 +0200
              Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-27 10:01 -0400
                Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-27 18:08 +0200
                Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-27 19:05 -0400
                Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-28 01:42 +0200
                Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-27 19:50 -0400
                Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-29 00:17 +0200
        Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-27 17:51 -0600
          Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php (correction - ignore previous) Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-27 18:20 -0600
      Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php "Peter H. Coffin" <hellsop@ninehells.com> - 2013-05-27 10:22 -0500
        Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-27 21:15 -0600
          Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-28 12:23 -0400
            Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Chuck Anderson <cycletourist@invalid.invalid> - 2013-05-28 17:56 -0600
              Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2013-05-28 22:27 -0400
              Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-29 15:23 +0200
          Re: Parsing mbox files with Windows Php Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> - 2013-05-29 00:08 +0200

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