Question

I am using Zend_Mail_Storage_Imap library to retrieve e-mails from IMAP.

$mail = new Zend_Mail_Storage_Imap(array('connection details'));
foreach($mail as $message)
{
  if($message->date > $myDesiredDate)
  {
    //do stuff
  }else{
    continue;
  }

This code retrieves all the mails with the oldest mail retrieved first. The variable $myDesiredDate is the date/time, mails beyond which are not needed. Is there a way to skip the retrieval of all the mails and check each mail’s date one by one? If not, can I reverse the $mail object to get the latest email at the top ?

UPDATE: I have now modified the code a little, to start from the latest mail and checking the date time of the current mail. The moment I encounter an email with the time beyond which I don’t want to parse emails, I break the loop.

    //time upto which I want to fetch emails (in seconds from current time)
    $time = 3600;
    $mail = new Zend_Mail_Storage_Imap(array('connection details'));
    //get total number of messages
    $total = $mail->countMessages()

    //loop through the mails, starting from the latest mail
    while($total>0)
    {
      $mailTime = strtotime(substr($mail->getMessage($total)->date,0,strlen($mail->getMessage($total)->date)-6));

      //check if the email was received before the time limit
      if($mailTime < (time()-$time))
        break;
      else
        //do my thing

      $total--;
    }

    //close mail connection

$mail->close();

The only thing that I am concerned here is, whether I shall get the mails in the correct order or not, if I start from mail count to 0 ?

Answer 1

Since, my code is working absolutely fine, I shall include this as an answer (quick and dirty).I now start from the latest mail and check the date time of the current mail. The moment I encounter an email with the time beyond which I don’t want to parse emails, I break the loop.

    //time upto which I want to fetch emails (in seconds from current time)
    $time = 3600;
    $mail = new Zend_Mail_Storage_Imap(array('connection details'));
    //get total number of messages
    $total = $mail->countMessages()

    //loop through the mails, starting from the latest mail
    while($total>0)
    {
      $mailTime = strtotime(substr($mail->getMessage($total)->date,0,strlen($mail->getMessage($total)->date)-6));

      //check if the email was received before the time limit
      if($mailTime < (time()-$time))
        break;
      else
        //do my thing

      $total--;
    }

    //close mail connection

$mail->close();