curl / libcurl / API / Examples / imap-search.c

imap-search.c

/***************************************************************************
 *                                  _   _ ____  _
 *  Project                     ___| | | |  _ \| |
 *                             / __| | | | |_) | |
 *                            | (__| |_| |  _ <| |___
 *                             \___|\___/|_| \_\_____|
 *
 * Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
 *
 * This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which
 * you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms
 * are also available at https://curl.se/docs/copyright.html.
 *
 * You may opt to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute and/or sell
 * copies of the Software, and permit persons to whom the Software is
 * furnished to do so, under the terms of the COPYING file.
 *
 * This software is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
 *
 ***************************************************************************/
/* <DESC>
 * Search for new IMAP emails
 * </DESC>
 */
#include <stdio.h>
 
#include <curl/curl.h>
 
/* This is a simple example showing how to search for new messages using
 * libcurl's IMAP capabilities.
 *
 * Note that this example requires libcurl 7.30.0 or above.
 */
 
int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl;
 
  CURLcode result = curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_ALL);
  if(result != CURLE_OK)
    return (int)result;
 
  curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    /* Set username and password */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_USERNAME, "user");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_PASSWORD, "secret");
 
    /* This is mailbox folder to select */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "imap://imap.example.com/INBOX");
 
    /* Set the SEARCH command specifying what we want to search for. Note that
     * this can contain a message sequence set and a number of search criteria
     * keywords including flags such as ANSWERED, DELETED, DRAFT, FLAGGED, NEW,
     * RECENT and SEEN. For more information about the search criteria please
     * see RFC-3501 section 6.4.4. */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "SEARCH NEW");
 
    /* Perform the custom request */
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
 
    /* Check for errors */
    if(result != CURLE_OK)
      fprintf(stderr, "curl_easy_perform() failed: %s\n",
              curl_easy_strerror(result));
 
    /* Always cleanup */
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
 
  curl_global_cleanup();
 
  return (int)result;
}

Notice

This source code example is simplified and may ignore return codes and error checks. We do this to highlight the libcurl function calls and related options and reduce unrelated code.

A real-world application does of course properly check every return value and exit correctly at the first serious error.