We've all been there - while (1) client process needs to send an email but it fails because it hasn't sent one since yesterday and the server dropped the connection. You don't want to make a new connection every time, so how do you check if your object is still connected? Use the isConnected method of course; oh, except that it doesn't exist... or does it?
See below for the undocumented and pseudo-private _NOOP instance method - it is part of the SMTP RFC and thanks to Mr. Barr's attention to detail it is available without having to hack through Net::SMTP's parent classes to issue the command yourself.
#!perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use MIME::Lite;
use Net::SMTP;
our $smtp; # "self-healing" SMTP connection
sub smtp_conn {
my $server = shift;
if (!defined $smtp or !$smtp->_NOOP) { # there she is ;)
$smtp = Net::SMTP->new($server);
}
return $smtp;
}
sub send_email {
my($server,$from,$to,$subject,$body) = @_;
my $smtp = smtp_conn($server) or return;
$smtp->mail($from);
$smtp->to($to);
my $msg = MIME::Lite->new(
To => $to,
From => $from,
Subject => $subject,
Data => $body);
return $smtp->data($msg->as_string);
}
while (1) {
if ($some_condition eq 'met') {
send_email(
'mail.foo.com',
'larryk@foo.com',
'a.wee.moose@bar.com',
'fleeble',
'blaargh');
}
sleep 60;
}