Soluții

Sending Email using Ruby – SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is a protocol, which handles sending e-mail and routing e-mail between mail servers. Ruby provides Net::SMTP class for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) client-side connection and provides two class methods new and start.

  • The new takes two parameters −
    • The server name defaulting to localhost.
    • The port number defaulting to the well-known port 25.
  • The start method takes these parameters −
    • The server − IP name of the SMTP server, defaulting to localhost.
    • The port − Port number, defaulting to 25.
    • The domain − Domain of the mail sender, defaulting to ENV[“HOSTNAME”].
    • The account − Username, default is nil.
    • The password − User password, defaulting to nil.
    • The authtype − Authorization type, defaulting to cram_md5.

An SMTP object has an instance method called sendmail, which will typically be used to do the work of mailing a message. It takes three parameters −

  • The source − A string or array or anything with an each iterator returning one string at a time.
  • The sender − A string that will appear in the from field of the email.
  • The recipients − A string or an array of strings representing the recipients’ addressee(s).
Example

Here is a simple way to send one email using Ruby script. Try it once −

require 'net/smtp'

message = <<MESSAGE_END
From: Private Person <me@fromdomain.com>
To: A Test User <test@todomain.com>
Subject: SMTP e-mail test

This is a test e-mail message.
MESSAGE_END

Net::SMTP.start('localhost') do |smtp|
  smtp.send_message message, 'me@fromdomain.com', 'test@todomain.com'
end

Here, you have placed a basic e-mail in message, using a document, taking care to format the headers correctly. E-mails require a From, To, and Subject header, separated from the body of the e-mail with a blank line.

To send the mail you use Net::SMTP to connect to the SMTP server on the local machine and then use the send_message method along with the message, the from address, and the destination address as parameters (even though the from and to addresses are within the e-mail itself, these aren’t always used to route mail).

If you’re not running an SMTP server on your machine, you can use the Net::SMTP to communicate with a remote SMTP server. Unless you’re using a webmail service (such as Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail), your e-mail provider will have provided you with outgoing mail server details that you can supply to Net::SMTP, as follows −

Net::SMTP.start('mail.your-domain.com')

This line of code connects to the SMTP server on port 25 of mail.your-domain.com without using any username or password. If you need to, though, you can specify port number and other details. For example −

Net::SMTP.start('mail.your-domain.com', 
                25, 
                'localhost', 
                'username', 'password' :plain)

This example connects to the SMTP server at mail.your-domain.com using a username and password in plain text format. It identifies the client’s hostname as localhost.

[mai mult...]

Ruby – Classes and Objects

Ruby is a perfect Object Oriented Programming Language. The features of the object-oriented programming language include −

  • Data Encapsulation
  • Data Abstraction
  • Polymorphism
  • Inheritance

An object-oriented program involves classes and objects. A class is the blueprint from which individual objects are created. In object-oriented terms, we say that your bicycle is an instance of the class of objects known as bicycles.

Take the example of any vehicle. It comprises wheels, horsepower, and fuel or gas tank capacity. These characteristics form the data members of the class Vehicle. You can differentiate one vehicle from the other with the help of these characteristics. A vehicle can also have certain functions, such as halting, driving, and speeding. Even these functions form the data members of the class Vehicle. You can, therefore, define a class as a combination of characteristics and functions.

A class Vehicle can be defined as −

Class Vehicle {

   Number no_of_wheels
   Number horsepower
   Characters type_of_tank
   Number Capacity
   Function speeding {
   }
   
   Function driving {
   }
   
   Function halting {
   }
}

By assigning different values to these data members, you can form several instances of the class Vehicle. For example, an airplane has three wheels, horsepower of 1,000, fuel as the type of tank, and a capacity of 100 liters. In the same way, a car has four wheels, horsepower of 200, gas as the type of tank, and a capacity of 25 liters.

Defining a Class in Ruby

To implement object-oriented programming by using Ruby, you need to first learn how to create objects and classes in Ruby. A class in Ruby always starts with the keyword class followed by the name of the class. The name should always be in initial capitals. The class Customer can be displayed as −

class Customer
end

You terminate a class by using the keyword end. All the data members in the class are between the class definition and the end keyword.

Variables in a Ruby Class

Ruby provides four types of variables −

  • Local Variables − Local variables are the variables that are defined in a method. Local variables are not available outside the method. You will see more details about method in subsequent chapter. Local variables begin with a lowercase letter or _.
  • Instance Variables − Instance variables are available across methods for any particular instance or object. That means that instance variables change from object to object. Instance variables are preceded by the at sign (@) followed by the variable name.
  • Class Variables − Class variables are available across different objects. A class variable belongs to the class and is a characteristic of a class. They are preceded by the sign @@ and are followed by the variable name.
  • Global Variables − Class variables are not available across classes. If you want to have a single variable, which is available across classes, you need to define a global variable. The global variables are always preceded by the dollar sign ($).
Example

Using the class variable @@no_of_customers, you can determine the number of objects that are being created. This enables in deriving the number of customers.

class Customer
   @@no_of_customers = 0
end
[mai mult...]