Hi All,

I am a newbie to perl. I am trying to make a script in perl for sending email on a person's birthday. The name,date,gender,timezone,mailid are in a semicolon seperated text file. I am reading the file line by line and splitting the variables. In my mail sending part, i am getting error.

The problem i am facing is,if I am hardcoding the email address in mailx syntax, I am getting a mail. If I am using the email variable in place of complete email address, I am getting an error. Text file, Error Code and the program output are below. Please help. PS: I have masked the email ids. My Perl version is v5.8.8. OS is Linux x86_64. My Shell is Korn Shell ie /bin/ksh $ echo $KSH_VERSION Version AJM 93t+ 2010-02-02

Text file
=========
Sandeep:1002:IST:him:email@provider
Vishal:0603:IST:him:email@provider
Aaradhna:2703:IST:her:email@provider
Mallikarjun Gowda:2412:IST:him:email@provider
Code Snippet
============
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use POSIX qw[tzset];
use POSIX qw(strftime);

        $ENV{'TZ'} = 'Asia/Calcutta';
        tzset();

        $clear_string=`clear`;
        print $clear_string;    

        printf("\t\t\tIST TIMEZONE SET\n\n");
        
        $datestring = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", localtime;
        
        printf("\tDate and time - $datestring\n");
        
        $datecmp = strftime "%d%m", localtime;

        #This part reads the file line by line  

        my $filename = '/home/srivasta/birthday.txt';
        open (my $fh,'<:encoding(UTF-8)',$filename)
        or die "Could not open file '$filename' $!";
        
while (my $row = <$fh>) {                
   chomp($row);
              my($birthdayperson,$birthdate,$timezone,$gender,$email)=
+split /:/,$row;

 if ($birthdate == $datecmp){
                 
 printf("\tBirthdayPerson name is $birthdayperson\n");
 printf("\tBirthdate is $birthdate\n");
 printf("\ttimezone is $timezone\n");
 printf("\tGender is $gender\n");
 printf("\tEmail is $email\n");

 printf("\t$birthdayperson has birthday today");
 printf("\n\tRemember to Wish $gender a very Happy Birthday\n");
                        
 # Below block of code sends mail to the intended Receipent
                        
open(MAILPIPE,'|/bin/mailx -s "Happy Birthday" email@provider') or die
+ "Can't open pipe $!";
 
print MAILPIPE "Wishing you a Very happy Birthday. Enjoy the day\n";
close MAILPIPE;
}
}
Sample Output
=============
                    IST TIMEZONE SET

        Date and time - Thu Dec 24 14:18:46 2015
        BirthdayPerson name is Mallikarjun Gowda
        Birthdate is 2412
        timezone is IST
        Gender is him
        Email is email@provider
        Mallikarjun Gowda has birthday today
        Remember to Wish him a very Happy Birthday
$
[download]

if I am using $email variable in place of email@provider (hardcoded mailid) i am getting an error as below.

open(MAILPIPE,'|/bin/mailx -s "Happy Birthday" $email') or die "Can't 
+open pipe $!";

Output
======

                    IST TIMEZONE SET

        Date and time - Thu Dec 24 14:32:03 2015
        BirthdayPerson name is Mallikarjun Gowda
        Birthdate is 2412
        timezone is IST
        Gender is him
        Email is email@provider.com
        Mallikarjun Gowda has birthday today
        Remember to Wish him a very Happy Birthday
You must specify direct recipients with -s, -c, or -b.
[download]