in reply to Email Modules

I can recommend MIME::Lite if you are going to be sending out multipart messages. It's basic as hell to set up and use in a script. Anytime I need a quick and dirty HTML mailer from within a customer's script, this is what I use.

For more robust applications sending out MIME (a web mailer, for example) I use the MIME::Tools library and build it myself. This is a little more work, but I like the level of control it gives me in constructing the headers and message.

Having said all that, if you are just sending plain text messages, why not just:

 open (MAIL,"| /usr/sbin/sendmail -t");
    print MAIL "To: $to\n";
    print MAIL "From: $fromaddr\n";
    print MAIL "Subject: $subject\n\n";
    print MAIL "$message";
    print MAIL "\n.\n";
 close(MAIL);

[download]
It's basic, it's fast, it's portable, and you don't have to worry about installing a whole module to send a message.
-oakbox
Update : My pipe was broken :)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Email Modules
by rob_au (Abbot) on Jun 01, 2002 at 08:32 UTC
    It's basic, it's fast, it's portable, and you don't have to worry about installing a whole module to send a message.
     

    I strongly disagree with this - This approach is by far not portable as it depends on a number of factors:

    • the installation of sendmail on the local machine; this is most certainly not a given, particularly when the script may be run in a Windows environment,

    • the installation of the sendmail binary in the /usr/sbin directory; other common locations for this binary include /usr/lib and /opt/bin, and,

    • the correct configuration of sendmail for mail delivery in the manner required.

    Furthermore, as for the ease of using this approach without installing modules, the Net::SMTP module is included as part of the core Perl installation and as such should be available on all installations. Additionally the use of this module is very straight-forward, for example,

    my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new('mail.mydomain.com');
$smtp->mail($fromaddr);
$smtp->to($to);
$smtp->data();
$smtp->data("Subject: $subject\n\n");
$smtp->data($message);
$smtp->dataend();
$smtp->quit;

    [download]

    Furthermore, the use of the local network SMTP server will make your network administrator happier as it is at this point that network mail policies and statistics reporting is often based.

     

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      Using Net::SMTP is a little more portable than piping to /usr/sbin/sendmail but not half as portable as using a general mail sending module such as Mail::Sendmail or MIME::Lite (all of them have an ability to send mail via SMTP).

      Besides, I cannot find Net::SMTP among perl core modules neither in 5.6.1 not earlier versions. There's a recent node on the topic.

[reply]
      This approach is by far not portable as it depends on a number of factors:

      Pipe to sendmail IF: You are on a *nix variant and know where the sendmail binary is. But I should mention that most distributions recognize sendmail as the defacto email server. Even Qmail recommends symlinking to the /usr/sbin/sendmail location.


      -oakbox

[reply]
Re: Re: Email Modules
by Marza (Vicar) on May 31, 2002 at 23:17 UTC

    I would second that. I had to build a report mail as the user did not want a report file.

    Mime made it really easy. If you need to do html mail stuff, you might look at the HTML::FromText as well. It helped on a couple issues.

[reply]
Re: Re: Email Modules
by kappa (Chaplain) on Jun 02, 2002 at 13:08 UTC
    I'd like to add, that with MIME::Lite you get several important features in one module: extremely easy mail construction, full MIME support and the ability to send the mail right away using your favourite way of sending mails.
[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom