

Ask HN: How to integrate e-mail into an application - zemanel

By integrating, i'm referring for example à la Posterous, where a user can send an e-mail to Posterous which converts it into a post.<p>How is it being done? integration with e-mail servers? Custom daemon?<p>Inquiring mind wants to know.
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madhouse
A simple, primitive way would be something like this:

\- connect to the stmp server of the service in question \- log in with your
username/password (the server now verifies you have access; it's nothing
interesting so far). \- in case one has access, the session is done as usual.

Up until this point, there's nothing else needed but a properly configured
SMTP server which can authenticate against whatever database you have.

Past this point, the email would get transferred to a program, like procmail,
which processes the e-mail. It digs out the contents, and whatever other meta-
information it needs.

Then uses the service's API to post the message.

This is an easy way to do it, but it doesn't scale all that well. However,
it's fairly simple, and can be used as a learning tool.

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zemanel
nice, thanks

