david <savatagedg / hotmail.com> writes:

> I know Ruby can do a lot of neat stuff, I was just wondering if someone
> has found a way to read emails from a gmail account. The reason is I'm
> hoping to create a system that a user can email an account with a
> command, and Ruby will read it and exacute that command. Any ideas /
> suggestions?

My reaction to such a scheme is "GAH! NOOOOOOOO!"

That has nothing to do with reading from gmail, and everything to do
with executing commands received via email.

(I managed to hose a university account royally after setting up a
similar system on VMS once)

Please implement some sort of authentication and extensive logging of
commands received and the results of executing them.  You'll thank
yourself later.  Also, protect against replay attacks - make sure that
receiving the same exact email twice won't cause commands to be
executed twice.

-- 
s=%q(  Daniel Martin -- martin / snowplow.org
       puts "s=%q(#{s})",s.map{|i|i}[1]       )
       puts "s=%q(#{s})",s.map{|i|i}[1]