Question

I’m trying to get my Gmail unread email count using Cocoa (Mac) and the PubSub framework. I’ve seen one or two links showing using PubSub and Gmail, here’s my code so far.

PSClient *client = [PSClient applicationClient];
NSURL    *url    = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/inbox"];
PSFeed   *feed   = [client addFeedWithURL:url];

[feed setLogin: @"myemailhere"];
[feed setPassword: @"mypasswordhere"];

NSLog(@"Error: %@", feed.lastError);

Anyone know how I can get the unread count?

Thanks 🙂

Answer 1

You have two problems: one which there’s a solution for and one which seems to be a perpetual problem.

The first: Feed refreshes happen asynchronously. So you need to listen to the PSFeedRefreshingNotification and PSFeedEntriesChangedNotification notifications to see when the feed gets refreshed and updated. The notification’s object will be the PSFeed in question.

As an example:

-(void)feedRefreshing:(NSNotification*)n
{
    PSFeed *f = [n object];
    NSLog(@"Is Refreshing: %@", [f isRefreshing] ? @"Yes" : @"No");
    NSLog(@"Feed: %@", f);
    NSLog(@"XML: %@", [f XMLRepresentation]);
    NSLog(@"Last Error: %@", [f lastError]);


    if(![f isRefreshing])
    {
        NSInteger emailCount = 0;
        NSEnumerator *e = [f entryEnumeratorSortedBy:nil];
        id entry = nil;

        while(entry = [e nextObject])
        {
            emailCount++;
            NSLog(@"Entry: %@", entry);
        }
        NSLog(@"Email Count: %ld", emailCount);
    }
}

-(void)feedUpdated:(NSNotification*)n
{
    NSLog(@"Updated");
}

-(void)pubSubTest
{
    PSClient *client = [PSClient applicationClient];
    NSURL    *url    = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/inbox"];
    PSFeed   *feed   = [client addFeedWithURL:url];

    [feed setLogin: @"[e-mail]"];
    [feed setPassword: @"correctPassword"];
    NSError *error = nil;

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(feedUpdated:) name:PSFeedEntriesChangedNotification object:nil];
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(feedRefreshing:) name:PSFeedRefreshingNotification object:nil];

    [feed refresh:&error];
    if(error)
        NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);
}

The second (and far worse) issue is that PubSub doesn’t handle authenticated feeds correctly. I saw this at http://www.dizzey.com/development/fetching-emails-from-gmail-using-cocoa/ and I’ve reproduced the same behavior on my own system. I don’t know if this bug is 10.7 specific or if it affects previous versions of OS X.

The “workaround” is to use NSURLConnection to perform an authenticated retrieval of the raw feed XML. You can then shove that into a PSFeed using its initWithData:URL: method. The very serious drawbacks with this is that you aren’t actually PubSubing anymore. You’ll have to run a timer and manually refresh the feed whenever appropriate.

The best I was able to do to help you out was to file a bug: rdar://problem/10475065 (OpenRadar: 1430409 ).

You should probably file a duplicate bug to try to increase the chances that Apple will fix it.

Good luck.