What Is A Mailet?

A mailet is a mail processing component. Though there are some differences, a servlet as a HTTP processing component is a useful analogy.

Mailets implementMailet. Mailets execute within a mailet container. James server is a well known mailet container. Assembly and configuration of mailets and mail processors is the responsibility of the particular container.

Mailet Basic Lifecycle

Mailets have a simple lifecycle managed by the mailet container:

1. init( MailetConfig config) passes environmental information. Any setup necessary should be performed now.
2. During processing, service( Mail mail) is called repeatedly. Note that this method may be called concurrently.
3. destroy() is called when the mailet is taken out of service.

Configuration

MailetConfig gives access to simple parametrization. getInitParameter allows configuration parameters to be passed from the mailet container. How these parameters are set by the user of the mailet is the responsibility of the container. More sophisticated configuration and assembly (for example, allowing access to services) is also the responsibility of the container.

Communication With The Container

MailetConfig allows communication with the container by calling getMailetContext(). See MailetContext for more details.

Basic Toolkit

The Basic Mailet Toolkit collects lightweight frameworks and utilities likely to be useful for general mailet developers.

Examples

SeeStandard mailets.

Building the Mailet API

The build usesAnt. ant -projecthelp describes appropriate targets. ant runs the default target.