Take care when using Net::SMTP - it is meant to implement SMTP, and the protocol (as described in RFC2821) specifically refers to how a dot (period) as first char of a line is a special beast. That beginning dot must be doubled by the client - and the server will take the opposite action, getting rid of one of the two.

That's because a single dot on a line is actually the way the client annnounces the server that the data stream is finished.

And Net::SMTP doesn't check the data you send - so take care, if you have a single dot as first char somewhere within data, that will determine the SMTP server to close the connection.