[Webware-devel] Mail Handler API?

[Aaron H. <aaron@MetroNY.com>]

Does anyone have any thoughts about a Mailhandler API?

I recently needed to process some email and I took a look at Twisted 
Python and the James Mailserver (Java).  They have some interesting 
ideas, but I am more comfortable w/ the Webware way of things.

Where as Twisted tried to be the complete Protocol handler, Webware 
wants to be an app server that relies on Native adapters to handle the 
messy protocol details.

James has excellent mail servlet structure that mimics the servlet 
architecture very well.  You have a maillet that you can extent in much 
the same way you can extend a servlet.

Currently I have a number of email robots that simply exist as pipe 
forwards in an alias or .forward file.

My  personal email has a forward file like:

/home/aaron/.forward

#forward to ASK spam filter
|/usr/local/bin/ASK.py

which takes my email and sends to a script called ASK

My first thought was to write a script using that takes the email and 
makes an XML-RCP call to webware, but that requires a lot of translation 
layers.  A better idea would to to write an adapter that speaks to 
webware directly.  Then you could write a 'pyMaillet' to handle that email.

The adapter should also pass SERVER type variables that make sense to 
email.

Anyway, since the email server in question is current MS Exchange, I 
wound up writing a python script that pulls the email directly from the 
server via IMAP.  It will run as a taks under webkit, but that is not a 
clean a solution as something that runs when the email arrives.

If anyone has any thoughts on this topic I would appreciate it.  This is 
an untapped market for webware and I would not mind creating a proof of 
concept if other people see a need for it.

-Aaron