FAQ 9.20 How do I send mail?

[PerlFAQ Server]

This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq9.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

--------------------------------------------------------------------

9.20: How do I send mail?

Use the "sendmail" program directly:

open(SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t -odq")
or die "Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n";
print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
From: User Originating Mail <me\@host>
To: Final Destination <you\@otherhost>
Subject: A relevant subject line

Body of the message goes here after the blank line
in as many lines as you like.
EOF
close(SENDMAIL) or warn "sendmail didn't close nicely";

The -oi option prevents "sendmail" from interpreting a line consisting
of a single dot as "end of message". The -t option says to use the
headers to decide who to send the message to, and -odq says to put the
message into the queue. This last option means your message won't be
immediately delivered, so leave it out if you want immediate delivery.

Alternate, less convenient approaches include calling "mail" (sometimes
called "mailx") directly or simply opening up port 25 have having an
intimate conversation between just you and the remote SMTP daemon,
probably "sendmail".

Or you might be able use the CPAN module "Mail::Mailer":

use Mail::Mailer;

$mailer = Mail::Mailer->new();
$mailer->open({ From => $from_address,
To => $to_address,
Subject => $subject,
})
or die "Can't open: $!\n";
print $mailer $body;
$mailer->close();

The "Mail::Internet" module uses "Net::SMTP" which is less Unix-centric
than "Mail::Mailer", but less reliable. Avoid raw SMTP commands. There
are many reasons to use a mail transport agent like "sendmail". These
include queuing, MX records, and security.



--------------------------------------------------------------------

The perlfaq-workers, a group of volunteers, maintain the perlfaq. They
are not necessarily experts in every domain where Perl might show up,
so please include as much information as possible and relevant in any
corrections. The perlfaq-workers also don't have access to every
operating system or platform, so please include relevant details for
corrections to examples that do not work on particular platforms.
Working code is greatly appreciated.

If you'd like to help maintain the perlfaq, see the details in
perlfaq.pod.

 

[Graham Drabble]

9.20: How do I send mail?

Use the "sendmail" program directly:

Or you might be able use the CPAN module "Mail::Mailer":

<snip>


Is there a reason that this prefers the use of sendmail over the various
CPAN modules that allow use of SMTP directly? As someone who writes a lot
fo Perl for Windows, scritps / modules that use calls to sendmail are a
real pain, those using SMTP directly are much more portable.

 

[Peter J. Holzer]

<snip>


Is there a reason that this prefers the use of sendmail over the various
CPAN modules that allow use of SMTP directly? As someone who writes a lot
fo Perl for Windows, scritps / modules that use calls to sendmail are a
real pain, those using SMTP directly are much more portable.

Actually you want to use SUBMISSION (RFC 4409), not SMTP (RFC 5321). But
apart from that I agree that talking a well-defined network protocol is
more portable than and generally preferrable to invoking a program.

(Invoking /usr/sbin/sendmail is a lot simpler, though)

hp

 

[brian d foy]

[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]

<snip>


Is there a reason that this prefers the use of sendmail over the various
CPAN modules that allow use of SMTP directly?

Because no one has rewritten the answer with modern modules. You could
be the one to do that.