PHP IMAP decoding messages

Question

I have emails sent via base64 encoding and 8bit encoding. I was wondering how I could check the encoding of the message using imap_fetchstructure (been doing this for about two hours, so lost) and then decode it properly.

Gmail and Mailbox (app on iOS) are sending it as 8bit while Windows 8's Mail app is sending it as base64. Either way, I need to decode whether its 8bit or base64 by detecting what type of encoding it has used.

Using PHP 5.1.6 (yes, I should update, been busy).

I really have no code to show. This is all I have:

<?php
$hostname = '{********:993/imap/ssl}INBOX';
$username = '*********';
$password = '******';

$inbox = imap_open($hostname,$username,$password) or die('Cannot connect to server: ' . imap_last_error());

$emails = imap_search($inbox,'ALL');

if($emails) {

    $output = '';

    rsort($emails);

    foreach($emails as $email_number) {

        $overview = imap_fetch_overview($inbox,$email_number,0);
        $message = imap_fetchbody($inbox,$email_number,2);
        $struct = imap_fetchstructure($inbox, $email_number);

        $output.= '<div class="toggle'.($overview[0]->seen ? 'read' : 'unread').'">';
        $output.= '<span class="subject">'.$overview[0]->subject.'</span> ';
        $output.= '<span class="from">'.$overview[0]->from.'</span>';
        $output.= '<span class="date">on '.$overview[0]->date.'</span>';
        $output.= '</div>';

        /* output the email body */
        $output.= '<div class="body">'.$message.'</div>';
    }

    echo $output;
} 

imap_close($inbox);
?>

Answer 1

imap_bodystruct() or imap_fetchstructure() should return this info to you. The following code should do exactly what you're looking for:

<?php
$hostname = '{********:993/imap/ssl}INBOX';
$username = '*********';
$password = '******';

$inbox = imap_open($hostname,$username,$password) or die('Cannot connect to server: ' . imap_last_error());

$emails = imap_search($inbox,'ALL');

if($emails) {
    $output = '';
    rsort($emails);

    foreach($emails as $email_number) {
        $overview = imap_fetch_overview($inbox,$email_number,0);
        $structure = imap_fetchstructure($inbox, $email_number);

        if(isset($structure->parts) && is_array($structure->parts) && isset($structure->parts[1])) {
            $part = $structure->parts[1];
            $message = imap_fetchbody($inbox,$email_number,2);

            if($part->encoding == 3) {
                $message = imap_base64($message);
            } else if($part->encoding == 1) {
                $message = imap_8bit($message);
            } else {
                $message = imap_qprint($message);
            }
        }

        $output.= '<div class="toggle'.($overview[0]->seen ? 'read' : 'unread').'">';
        $output.= '<span class="from">From: '.utf8_decode(imap_utf8($overview[0]->from)).'</span>';
        $output.= '<span class="date">on '.utf8_decode(imap_utf8($overview[0]->date)).'</span>';
        $output.= '<br /><span class="subject">Subject('.$part->encoding.'): '.utf8_decode(imap_utf8($overview[0]->subject)).'</span> ';
        $output.= '</div>';

        $output.= '<div class="body">'.$message.'</div><hr />';
    }

    echo $output;
}

imap_close($inbox);
?>