(Objective-C) Create HTML Email Reply

The goal of this example is to create a new HTML body where the new reply HTML is at the top, and the original HTML body is below.

The .eml files for this example are available at HTML Reply Email Samples (.eml)

Note: This is only one of a million ways to do it..

Chilkat Objective-C Library Downloads

MAC OS X (Cocoa) Libs

iOS Libs

#import <CkoEmail.h>
#import <CkoStringBuilder.h>
#import <NSString.h>

CkoEmail *email = [[CkoEmail alloc] init];

// To create this example, I used Mozilla Thunderbird (with a GMail accont)
// to first send a simple HTML email to my chilkatsoft.com email address.  I then 
// used Thunderbird to reply with more HTML.
// I then saved both emails as .eml files.  These are available at
// http://chilkatdownload.com/example_data/htmlreplyemail.zip

// Load the .eml for the 1st email that was received. This is the original
// HTML email before the reply HTML is added.
BOOL success = [email LoadEml: @"qa_data/eml/receivedHtmlEmail.eml"];
if (success != YES) {
    NSLog(@"%@",email.LastErrorText);
    return;
}

// If this email doesn't have an HTML body, then do something else...
// (that's for another example maybe?)
if ([email HasHtmlBody] == NO) {
    NSLog(@"%@",@"Email does not have an HTML body..");
    return;
}

// Get the HTML body in a StringBuilder..
CkoStringBuilder *sbHtml = [[CkoStringBuilder alloc] init];
[sbHtml Append: [email GetHtmlBody]];

// The HTML body contains this:
// <html><head>
// <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
//   </head>
//   <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
//     <font face="Calibri"><br>
//       This is a test <font color="#3366ff"><i>HTML email</i></font>...<br>
//       <br>
//       <br>
//     </font>
//   </body>
// </html>

// Make sure the BODY tags are lowercase.
int numReplaced = [[sbHtml Replace: @"<BODY" replacement: @"<body"] intValue];
numReplaced = [[sbHtml Replace: @"</BODY" replacement: @"</body"] intValue];

// Get the HTML within the "body" open/close tags
CkoStringBuilder *sbBodyContent = [[CkoStringBuilder alloc] init];
[sbBodyContent Append: [sbHtml GetAfterBetween: @"<body" beginMark: @">" endMark: @"</body>"]];

// Replace what we just extracted with a marker..
numReplaced = [[sbHtml Replace: [sbBodyContent GetAsString] replacement: @"TO_BE_UPDATED"] intValue];

// Create a template for the new body:
CkoStringBuilder *sbTemplate = [[CkoStringBuilder alloc] init];
BOOL bCrlf = YES;
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"REPLY_HTML_CONTENT" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"<br>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"<div class=\"moz-signature\">Best Regards,<br>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"  John Smith<br>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"  Chilkat Software, Inc.<br>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"  <p>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"    <a href=\"https://twitter.com/chilkatsoft\">Follow Chilkat on" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"      Twitter</a>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"  </p>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"</div>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"<div class=\"moz-cite-prefix\">On 2/8/2017 4:25 PM, Chilkat Support" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"  wrote:<br>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"</div>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"<blockquote>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"ORIGINAL_BODY_CONTENT" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"</blockquote>" crlf: bCrlf];
[sbTemplate AppendLine: @"<br>" crlf: bCrlf];

// Replace the markers in the template with actual HTML.
// First our reply HTML:
NSString *myHtmlReplyBody = @"This is my <font color=\"#6600cc\"><b>reply HTML</b></font><br>";
numReplaced = [[sbTemplate Replace: @"REPLY_HTML_CONTENT" replacement: myHtmlReplyBody] intValue];

// Now for the original HTML body content:
numReplaced = [[sbTemplate Replace: @"ORIGINAL_BODY_CONTENT" replacement: [sbBodyContent GetAsString]] intValue];

// Insert into sbHtml:
numReplaced = [[sbHtml Replace: @"TO_BE_UPDATED" replacement: [sbTemplate GetAsString]] intValue];

// Use sbHtml as the new HTML body..
[email SetHtmlBody: [sbHtml GetAsString]];

// Examine the result HTML.
NSLog(@"%@",[sbHtml GetAsString]);

// Save the email.
[email SaveEml: @"qa_output/emailWithUpdatedHtmlBody.eml"];

// Note: To finish creating the reply email, modify the To/From/CC headers,
// the subject, etc.  You may also with to iterate over the headers (from 1 to NumHeaderFields)
// and selectively remove all except the particular headers you wish to keep.
// You should keep: MIME-Version, Content-Type, Message-ID.  Chilkat will automaticaly
// generate and replace the Message-ID at the time of sending.  You'll want to replace
// the Date header with the current date/time.
//