The following script is one that I use occasionally when I need a self-mailer. It is self-contained: a single script outputs the HTML form, takes the input, and outputs the success/failure page. It takes the precaution of not accepting the recipient's email address via the form. Accepting recipient email addresses via an HTML form exposes you to malicious people creating their own clients that will interact with your script to turn it into a spam relay. This script won't let that happen (I'm fairly certain).

I wrote it pretty early on in my Perl learning curve, so I apologize in advance for any inelegance.

In particular, if I had it to do over again, I would have written this using MIME::Lite. I've gotten so that I prefer it over Mail::Mailer. But as they say in Portuguese, "Tanto faz" (either will do).

I would also do away with the CGI::Carp stuff after the development phase was overwith.

I also wrote this before I understood HTML::Template, so it reads header and footer files to allow for poor-man's site templates.

Again, if I were rewriting it, I would do a lot more to separate the HTML from the code.

But notwithstanding those caviets, look at it as a good starting point. It gets the job done for me when my needs are fairly simple... Here it is: selfmailer.cgi.

use strict; use warnings; use CGI qw( -unique_headers ); use CGI::Carp qw( fatalsToBrowser ); use Mail::Mailer; my $recipient_email = 'someone@anywhere.org'; my $recipient_name = 'John Doe'; my $doc_title = "Contact".$recipient_name; my $script = "selfmailer.cgi"; my ($top_form, $bottom_form); BEGIN { my ($tof_file, $bof_file) = ( '', '../site_templates/bof.shtml' ); my @templates; foreach ($tof_file, $bof_file) { if ( $_ ) { my $fh; local $/ = undef; open $fh, "<$_" or die "Can't open $_: $!\n"; my $template = <$fh>; close $fh or die "Can't close $_: $!\n"; push @templates, $template; } else { push @templates, ''; } } ($top_form, $bottom_form) = @templates; sub carp_error { my $error_message = shift; my $err = new CGI; print $err->header( "text/html" ), $err->start_html( "Error" ), $err->h1 ( "Error" ), $err->p( "Sorry, the following error occurred: "), $err->p( $err->i( $error_message ) ), $err->br, $err->p( $bottom_form ), $err->end_html; } CGI::Carp::set_message( \&carp_error ); } $ENV{PATH} = ''; my $q = new CGI; SWITCH: { !$q->param() && do { print_mail_form( $q, $doc_title, $recipient_name, $bottom_form ); last SWITCH; }; $q->param('Send') && do { if ( validate_input($q) ) { send_message( $q, $recipient_email, $q->param("Sender"), $q->param("From"), $q->param("Subject"), $q->param("Message") ); success ( $q, $bottom_form, $recipient_name ); } else { output_error( $q, $doc_title, "All fields must be filled in.", $bottom_form ); } last SWITCH; }; output_error( $q, $doc_title, "Unrecognized form data.", $bottom_form ); } $q->delete_all(); sub print_mail_form { my ( $q, $title, $recipient, $bof ) = @_; print $q->header( "text/html" ), $q->start_html( $title ), $q->h1( $title ), $q->hr, $q->p( "You may use this form to send an email message +", "to $recipient. Please include your name and ", "email address." ), $q->start_form( -action => $q->url(), -method => "POST" ), $q->p( "Name: ", $q->textfield( -name => "Sender", -size => 20, -maxlength => 40)), $q->p( "Email Address: ", $q->textfield( -name => "From", -size => 40, -maxlength => 80 )), $q->p( "Subject: ", $q->textfield( -name => "Subject", -size => 60, -maxlength =>80 ) ), $q->p( "Message:" ), $q->textarea( -name => "Message", -cols => 60, -rows => 16 ), $q->submit( -name => "Send", -value => "Send" ), $q->reset(), $q->p( $bof ), $q->end_html; } sub output_error { my ( $q, $title, $text, $bof ) = @_; print $q->header( "text/html" ), $q->start_html( "$title Error" ), $q->h1( "Error:" ), $q->br, $q->p( "The $title form encountered an error." ), $q->p( $text ), $q->p( "If you wish you may ", $q->a( { -href => $q->url() }, "return to the mailer." )), $q->p( $bof ), $q->end_html; } sub validate_input { my $q = shift; foreach my $parameter ( 'Sender', 'From', 'Subject', 'Message' ) { return 0 if not $q->param( $parameter ); my $param = $q->param($_); if ( $_ eq 'From' ) { $param =~ s/[~`#]//; $q->param($_,$param); } } return 1; } sub send_message { my ( $q, $recipient_addr, $sender_name, $sender_email, $subject, $message ) = @_; my $mail = new Mail::Mailer; $mail->open( { To => $recipient_addr, From => $sender_email, Subject => "[Perlmonk Contact] " . $subject } ) or die "Can't open mail transport system: $!\n"; print $mail $message; close $mail or die "Can't close mail transport session: $!\n"; } sub success { my ( $q, $bof, $recipient_name )= @_; print $q->header( "text/html" ), $q->start_html( "Success" ), $q->h1("Success"), $q->h3("Here is how your message appeared."), $q->p("To: $recipient_name"), $q->p("From: ",$q->param('Sender')," <", $q->param('From'),">"), $q->p("Subject: [Perlmonk Contact] ", $q->param('Subject')), $q->p("Message:",$q->br, $q->param('Message')), $q->p($bof), $q->end_html; }

For an example of this script in use, you may visit http://davido.perlmonk.org/cgi-bin/selfmailer.cgi


Dave


In reply to Re: CGI form to email by davido
in thread CGI form to email by ezekiel

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