---
name: "Mail::Address"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "perl-mailtools"
version: "2.22-3"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Mail::Address"
---

# Mail::Address(3pm)

parse mail addresses

## NAME

Mail::Address - parse mail addresses

## SYNOPSIS

```
 use Mail::Address;
 my @addrs = Mail::Address->parse($line);
 foreach $addr (@addrs) {
     print $addr->format,"\n";
 }
```

## DESCRIPTION

`"Mail::Address"` extracts and manipulates email addresses from a message header.  It cannot be used to extract addresses from some random text. You can use this module to create RFC822 compliant fields.

Although `"Mail::Address"` is a very popular subject for books, and is used in many applications, it does a very poor job on the more complex message fields.  It does only handle simple address formats (which covers about 95% of what can be found). Problems are with

- •

  no support for address groups, even not with the semi-colon as separator between addresses;

- •

  limited support for escapes in phrases and comments.  There are cases where it can get wrong; and

- •

  you have to take care of most escaping when you create an address yourself: `"Mail::Address"` does not do that for you.

Often requests are made to the maintainers of this code improve this situation, but this is not a good idea, where it will break zillions of existing applications.  If you wish for a fully RFC2822 compliant implementation you may take a look at Mail::Message::Field::Full, part of MailBox.

**. Example**

```
  my $s = Mail::Message::Field::Full->new($from_header);
  # ref $s isa Mail::Message::Field::Addresses;
  my @g = $s->groups;          # all groups, at least one
  # ref $g[0] isa Mail::Message::Field::AddrGroup;
  my $ga = $g[0]->addresses;   # group addresses
  my @a = $s->addresses;       # all addresses
  # ref $a[0] isa Mail::Message::Field::Address;
```

## METHODS

### Constructors

- Mail::Address-\>**new**( $phrase, $address, \[ $comment \] )

  Create a new `"Mail::Address"` object which represents an address with the elements given. In a message these 3 elements would be seen like:

  ```
   PHRASE <ADDRESS> (COMMENT)
   ADDRESS (COMMENT)
  ```

  example:

  ```
   Mail::Address->new("Perl5 Porters", "perl5-porters@africa.nicoh.com");
  ```

- $obj-\>**parse**($line)

  Parse the given line a return a list of extracted `"Mail::Address"` objects. The line would normally be one taken from a To,Cc or Bcc line in a message

  example:

  ```
   my @addr = Mail::Address->parse($line);
  ```

### Accessors

- $obj-\>**address**()

  Return the address part of the object.

- $obj-\>**comment**()

  Return the comment part of the object

- $obj-\>**format**(@addresses)

  Return a string representing the address in a suitable form to be placed on a `"To"`, `"Cc"`, or `"Bcc"` line of a message.  This method is called on the first address to be used; other specified addresses will be appended, separated by commas.

- $obj-\>**phrase**()

  Return the phrase part of the object.

### Smart accessors

- $obj-\>**host**()

  Return the address excluding the user id and '@'

- $obj-\>**name**()

  Using the information contained within the object attempt to identify what the person or groups name is.

  **Note:** This function tries to be smart with the "phrase" of the email address, which is probably a very bad idea.  Consider to use **phrase()** itself.

- $obj-\>**user**()

  Return the address excluding the '@' and the mail domain

## SEE ALSO

This module is part of the MailTools distribution, *http://perl.overmeer.net/mailtools/*.

## AUTHORS

The MailTools bundle was developed by Graham Barr.  Later, Mark Overmeer took over maintenance without commitment to further development.

Mail::Cap by Gisle Aas \<aas@oslonett.no\>. Mail::Field::AddrList by Peter Orbaek \<poe@cit.dk\>. Mail::Mailer and Mail::Send by Tim Bunce \<Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk\>. For other contributors see ChangeLog.

## LICENSE

Copyrights 1995-2000 Graham Barr \<gbarr@pobox.com\> and 2001-2024 Mark Overmeer \<perl@overmeer.net\>.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See *http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html*