Receiving e-mail messages

You create ColdFusion pages to access a Post Office Protocol (POP) server to retrieve e-mail message information. ColdFusion can then display the messages (or just header information), write information to a database, or perform other actions.

The cfpop tag lets you add Internet mail client features and e-mail consolidation to applications. Although a conventional mail client provides an adequate interface for personal mail, there are many cases in which an alternative interface to some mailboxes is advantageous. You use cfpop to develop targeted mail clients to suit the specific needs of a wide range of applications. The cfpop tag does not work with the other major e-mail protocol, Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP).

Here are three instances in which implementing POP mail makes sense:

• If your site has generic mailboxes that are read by more than one person ([email protected]), it can be more efficient to construct a ColdFusion mail front end to supplement individual user mail clients.
• In many applications, you can automate mail processing when the mail is formatted to serve a particular purpose; for example, when subscribing to a list server.
• If you want to save e-mail messages to a database.

Using cfpop on your POP server is like running a query on your mailbox contents. You set its action attribute to retrieve either headers (using the GetHeaderOnly value) or entire messages (using the GetAll value) and assign it a name value. You use the name to refer to the record set that cfpop returns, for example, when using cfoutput. To access a POP server, you also must define the server, username, and password attributes.

For more information on cfpop syntax and variables, see CFML Reference.

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