How can I parse the full name from an email using Ruby?

Question

I'm trying to extract information from email messages. I have a list of .eml files and have a ruby program to read in each message, then print the output.

Here's my code so far:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'mail'
basedir = '.'
files = Dir.glob("*.eml")
files.each do |i|
  mail = Mail.read(i)
  puts "filename: #{i}"
  puts "from: #{mail.from}"
  puts "to: #{mail.to}"
end

It works, but I'm trying to get the full name from the email addresses as well. So instead of just "bobloblaw@example.com" I'm trying to get "<Bob Loblaw> bobloblaw@example.com" .

Answer 1

You should be able to use the display_names property like so:

mail[:from].display_names.first
mail[:to].display_names.first

Note that display_names is an array as a message can have more than one recipient. The code above would get you the first name.

Answer 2

You can directly access the header to retrieve this information.

mail.header[:from].formatted

See common_address.rb for more methods.