Parsing Inbound

Inbound processing allows you (or your users) to send emails to Postmark, which we then process and deliver to you via a web hook in a nicely formatted JSON document.

Here is a simple Ruby/Sinatra application that does basic inbound processing.

logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)

class Comment
  attr_accessor :attributes

  def self.create_from_inbound_hook(message)
    self.new(:text => message["TextBody"],
             :user_email => message["From"],
             :discussion_id => message["MailboxHash"])
  end

  def initialize(attributes={})
    @attributes = attributes
  end
end

post '/inbound' do
  request.body.rewind
  comment = Comment.create_from_inbound_hook(Postmark::Json.decode(request.body.read))
  logger.info comment.inspect
end

If you don’t like that the fields of the Inbound JSON document are all in CamelCase, you can use the Postmark::Inbound.to_ruby_hash method to give it some Ruby flavor.

postmark_hash = Postmark::Json.decode(request.body.read)
ruby_hash = Postmark::Inbound.to_ruby_hash(postmark_hash)

# => {:from=>"myUser@theirDomain.com", :from_full=>{:email=>"myUser@theirDomain.com", :name=>"John Doe"}, :to=>"451d9b70cf9364d23ff6f9d51d870251569e+ahoy@inbound.postmarkapp.com", :to_full=>[{:email=>"451d9b70cf9364d23ff6f9d51d870251569e+ahoy@inbound.postmarkapp.com", :name=>""}], :cc=>"\"Full name\" <sample.cc@emailDomain.com>, \"Another Cc\" <another.cc@emailDomain.com>", :cc_full=>[{:email=>"sample.cc@emailDomain.com", :name=>"Full name"}, {:email=>"another.cc@emailDomain.com", :name=>"Another Cc"}], :reply_to=>"myUsersReplyAddress@theirDomain.com", :subject=>"This is an inbound message", :message_id=>"22c74902-a0c1-4511-804f2-341342852c90", :date=>"Thu, 5 Apr 2012 16:59:01 +0200", :mailbox_hash=>"ahoy", :text_body=>"[ASCII]", :html_body=>"[HTML(encoded)]", :tag=>"", :headers=>[{:name=>"X-Spam-Checker-Version", :value=>"SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) onrs-ord-pm-inbound1.example.com"}, {:name=>"X-Spam-Status", :value=>"No"}, {:name=>"X-Spam-Score", :value=>"-0.1"}, {:name=>"X-Spam-Tests", :value=>"DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,SPF_PASS"}, {:name=>"Received-SPF", :value=>"Pass (sender SPF authorized) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=209.85.160.180; helo=mail-gy0-f180.google.com; envelope-from=myUser@theirDomain.com; receiver=451d9b70cf9364d23ff6f9d51d870251569e+ahoy@inbound.postmarkapp.com"}, {:name=>"DKIM-Signature", :value=>"v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;        d=example.com; s=google;        h=mime-version:reply-to:date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc         :content-type;        bh=cYr/+oQiklaYbBJOQU3CdAnyhCTuvemrU36WT7cPNt0=;        b=QsegXXbTbC4CMirl7A3VjDHyXbEsbCUTPL5vEHa7hNkkUTxXOK+dQA0JwgBHq5C+1u         iuAJMz+SNBoTqEDqte2ckDvG2SeFR+Edip10p80TFGLp5RucaYvkwJTyuwsA7xd78NKT         Q9ou6L1hgy/MbKChnp2kxHOtYNOrrszY3JfQM="}, {:name=>"MIME-Version", :value=>"1.0"}, {:name=>"Message-ID", :value=>"<CAGXpo2WKfxHWZ5UFYCR3H_J9SNMG+5AXUovfEFL6DjWBJSyZaA@mail.gmail.com>"}], :attachments=>[{:name=>"myimage.png", :content=>"[BASE64-ENCODED CONTENT]", :content_type=>"image/png", :content_length=>4096}, {:name=>"mypaper.doc", :content=>"[BASE64-ENCODED CONTENT]", :content_type=>"application/msword", :content_length=>16384}]}