Find any email in your Outlook inbox that matches certain criteria

[Foggy Bottoms]

The following snippet allows a user to find thru perl a certain email that complies with user-specified search criteria. As the function is very generic, the user can search in any field he likes.
All he needs to do is call the function as follows :

getInboxEmails('Subject'=>'','To'=>'','SenderName'=>'','Body'=>'zs');

He can specify which field to search, as long as they exist in the Outlook Object Model. As soon as a criterion isn't met in a field for a given mail then the search goes on to the next mail without reading that mail's other fields...
Please feel free to comment on the code - I new to the perl world and I may not be programming efficiently - I just enjoy OLE stuff !!!

Enjoy this bit, more to come, Foggy Bottoms.

sub getInboxEmails
# this method returns a list of all the mails contained in the Inbox f
+older
# that meet the search criteria specified in the filter
{
   my %filter = @_;

   if ( my $outlook = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Outlook.Application
+'))# connect to outlook application
   {
      
      # connect and browse Inbox
      my $namespace = $outlook->GetNameSpace("MAPI");
      my $inbox = $namespace->GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox); 
      # my $inbox = $namespace->GetFolderFromID("Inbox\\INSA\\amis"); 
      # returns a MAPIfolder object
      
      my $inboxEmails = undef;
      my $found = 0;
      
      for (my $i=1;$i<=$inbox->items->Count();$i++) 
      # scan each item and make sure it's an email
      # CAUTION : Outlook's item index starts at one and goes to the n
+umber of items found instead
      # of going from 0 to (n-1)...
      {
         my $item = $inbox->items->Item($i);
         my $email = undef;
      
         if ($item->{Class}==olMail)# is it an email ? olMail = 43
         {
            foreach my $key (keys %filter)
            {
               # print "key : $key \n"; # debug purpose
               if ($key ne "Body")# Body needs a special treatment as 
+it can be text or HTML
               {
                  $email->{$key} = $item->{$key};
               }
               else
               {        
                  if (not($email->{"Body"}=$item->{HTMLBody}))
                  {
                     $email->{"Body"}=$item->{Body}
                  }
               }
               # if mail meets criterion   
               $found = ($email->{$key}    =~/$filter{$key}/is);
               
               if (not $found)
               {
                  last; # exits the foreach loop at this point
               }
            }
            if ($found) # if still true then mail meets all criteria s
+pecified
            {
               $inboxEmails->{$i}=$email;
               # print "found one ($i)...\n" # debug purpose
            }
         }
      }
      return $inboxEmails;
   }
   return (undef); # if code reaches this line then it hasn't reached 
+the other return
}# implying either the program's not open or there's no document.

[belg4mit]

You could abstract this a little bit and remove hard-coded references to "Inbox". I'd also suggest a title of "grep Outlook folder".

--
I'm not belgian but I play one on TV.

[Foggy Bottoms]

It's on the way - I'll try to get down to it today - thanks.