Catalyst Development

One of the new features in SocketTools 6.0 is the Message Store API which is designed to make it simple to store and manage email messages on the local system. For developers who use the POP3, IMAP4 and NNTP components to retrieve messages, the storage API enables those messages to be easily stored in a single file, rather than storing them individually in separate text files. The actual message store format is similar to the standard UNIX mbox format, and the API can actually be used to open mailboxes that were created on a UNIX or Linux system.

Using the storage API is very simple, with methods that create or open an existing storage file, store new messages, retrieve old messages and search for specific messages. For example, you can search the message store for all emails that have a certain subject or were sent by a particular individual. The API itself is independent of the various email protocol components, and can be interfaced with any of them to provide local storage capability for the email messages that you’re processing.

The SocketTools Library Edition includes the message store API as part of the MIME API, with new functions such as MimeOpenMessageStore and MimeFindStoredMessage. The SocketTools Visual Edition includes the new functionality as part of the current MailMessage control, while the SocketTools .NET Edition includes it as part of the SocketTools.MailMessage assembly.