Parse Email in Delphi

In previous section, I introduced how to download email with background service. In this section, I will introduce how to parse email in Delphi.

Introduction

After you received the emails to the local folder, we can use the following code to parse the email now. The following code demonstrates how to parse from, to, cc, subject, body text, attachments of all emails file received by previous sample.

Note

Remarks: All of examples in this section are based on first section: A simple Delphi project. To compile and run the following example codes successfully, please click here to learn how to create the test project and add reference to your project.

[Delphi Example - Parse email]

The following example codes demonstrate how to use EAGetMail POP3 component to parse email sender, to, cc, subject, body text and attachments.

Note

To get the full sample projects, please refer to Samples section.

unit Unit1;

interface

uses
    Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
    Dialogs, StdCtrls, EAGetMailObjLib_TLB;

type
    TForm1 = class(TForm)
        Button1: TButton;
        procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
    private
        { Private declarations }
        procedure ParseEmail(fileName: WideString);
    public
        { Public declarations }
    end;

var
    Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm1.ParseEmail(fileName: WideString);
Var
    oMail: TMail;
    i: Integer;

    addrs: IAddressCollection;
    addr: IMailAddress;

    atts: IAttachmentCollection;
    att: IAttachment;
begin
    oMail := TMail.Create(Application);
    oMail.LicenseCode := 'TryIt';
    oMail.LoadFile(fileName, false);

    // Parse email sender
    ShowMessage('From: ' + oMail.From.Address);

    // Parse email to recipients
    addrs := oMail.ToList;
    for i := 0 To addrs.Count - 1 do
    begin
        addr := addrs.Item[i];
        ShowMessage('To: ' + addr.Address);
    End;

    // Parse email cc recipients
    addrs := oMail.CcList;
    for i := 0 To addrs.Count - 1 do
        begin
            addr := addrs.Item[i];
            ShowMessage('Cc: ' + addr.Address);
        end;

    // Parse email subject
    ShowMessage('Subject: ' + oMail.Subject);

    // Parse email text body
    ShowMessage('Text body: ' + oMail.TextBody);

    // Parse email HTML body
    ShowMessage('HTML body: ' + oMail.HtmlBody);

    // Parse attachment
    atts := oMail.AttachmentList;
    for i := 0 To atts.Count - 1 do
        begin
            att := atts.Item[i];
            ShowMessage(att.Name);
        end;

end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
    try
        ParseEmail('c:\test folder\test.eml');
    except
        on ep:Exception do
            ShowMessage('Error: ' + ep.Message);
    end;
end;

end.

TextBody and HtmlBody

Not every email has both text/plain body text and html body text. However, Mail object provides both TextBody and HtmlBody properties smartly. If the email has only text/plain body, then Mail object converts the text/plain body to html body automatically; if the email has only html body, then Mail object converts the html body to text/plain body automatically.

Next Section

At next section I will introduce how to verify digital signature and decrypt email.

Appendix

Comments

If you have any comments or questions about above example codes, please click here to add your comments.