Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Not really a legal firm...anyway I just installed Mail::Mailer and ran into this: 
Can't use string ("From") as a HASH ref while "strict refs" in use at 
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/Mail/Mailer.pm line 180.

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This is the documented method (such as it is) and I don't see how the "From" field can be avoided in sending an email, at least w/ Mail::Mailer since the option ($MTA->open(From=>$from ..., etc) is what it is.

I also just set up a new system and moved to perl 5.10 and noticed (because of this issue) that I apparently can no longer remove "use strict" (ie, the exact same error occurs). What's that about? Perhaps the module uses strict somewhere, but I doubt it because there are a few of these queries around the web (with no response).

Is there a better module for doing this (sending mail via a MTA) so that I don't have to learn all the little switches or whatever for postfix?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Mail::Mailer, strict, and From
by sflitman (Hermit) on Jan 04, 2009 at 01:46 UTC
    I'd use MIME::Tools, it works really well. You just need to know where sendmail is located, postfix installs its own version of it which is compatible. Here's some code I use all the time: 
    use strict;
use vars qw/$cmdMail/;
use LWP::MediaTypes qw(guess_media_type read_media_types);
use MIME::Entity;

BEGIN {
   $cmdMail='/usr/lib/sendmail';   # location of your sendmail
   read_media_types('/etc/mime.types');  # location of your mime.types
+ file
}

...

sub sendmail {   # returns undef or error
   my ($from,$to,$subject,$body,@attachments)=@_;
   my $ret;
   my $top=build MIME::Entity
         From         => $from,
         'Reply-to'   => $from,
         To           => $to,
         Subject      => $subject,
         Data         => $body;
   if (@attachments) {
      for my $path (@attachments) {
          my $type=guess_media_type($path);
          $top->attach(
              Path     => $path,
              Type     => $type,
              Encoding => '-SUGGEST'
          );
       }
    }
    $top->sync_headers(Length=>'COMPUTE') if @attachments;
    if (open(MAIL,"| $cmdMail -t -i")) {
       $top->print(\*MAIL);
       close MAIL;
    } else {
       $ret="Mail to $to failed: $!";
    }
    $ret;
}

...

my $err=sendmail('server@wacky.com','programmer@wacky.com','Your turke
+y is done!',"Come get some!  Don't forget the beer!",'/home/programme
+r/Pictures/beer.jpg');
die $err if $err;

...

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    HTH,
    SSF
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[d/l]
Re: Mail::Mailer, strict, and From
by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Jan 04, 2009 at 00:44 UTC

    I believe open in Mail::Mailer takes a hash ref, not a list of args. So $MTA->open(From=>$from ..., etc) should be $MTA->open({From=>$from ..., etc}). It's complaining because the first arg "From" isn't the hash ref it expects.

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[d/l]
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      Yep! Still ain't sure about that no more removing "use strict" tho.
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Re: Mail::Mailer, strict, and From
by fmerges (Chaplain) on Jan 04, 2009 at 21:33 UTC

    Hi,

    I like to use Mail::Send interface instead

    Regards,

    fmerges at irc.freenode.net
[reply]

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