Hacking Gmail

122 Part II — Getting Inside Gmail

Assuming you’re logged in, request the Inbox like so:

$gm->fetchBox(GM_STANDARD, Inbox, 0);

Then parse it into an object called a Snapshot, like so:

$snapshot = $gm->getSnapshot(GM_STANDARD);

Once you have the Inbox loaded into a Snapshot, you can query that Snapshot

and get all of the information out of it. You’ll have noticed, however, two things

not yet covered: the phrase GM_STANDARDand the properties that Snapshots

themselves have.

The Constants

GM_STANDARDis a constant. Gmailer has 20 constants available, each representing

a different feature of the Gmail system: the Inbox, the Labels, the Contacts, and

so on. To work with Gmail, you need to use a method to retrieve one of the con-

stants, and then you create a Snapshotof it, and finally query that Snapshot.

This two-stage process is really all there is to the Gmailer library, so once you

understand it, you are good to go.

Table 7-2 gives the constants available to the programmer.

Table 7-2 Gmailer’s Constants

Constant Description

GM_STANDARD All the information about a standard box (Inbox, Sent, All,

Starred, Spam, Trash).

GM_LABEL All the information about the labels.

GM_CONVERSATION All the information about a particular conversation.

GM_QUERY All about a search query.

GM_CONTACT All about the contact list.

GM_ACT_APPLYLABEL Apply or remove label from message.

GM_ACT_REMOVELABEL

GM_ACT_STAR Star or unstar a message.

GM_ACT_UNSTAR

GM_ACT_SPAM Mark or unmark a message as spam.

GM_ACT_UNSPAM

GM_ACT_READ Mark a message as read or unread.

GM_ACT_UNREAD

GM_ACT_ARCHIVE Move a message away from or to the Inbox.

GM_ACT_INBOX