Problems using Mail::Sender

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

I am trying to write a tiny program to send my birthday invitations using Mail::Sender. The last half-hour I tried debugging the following code (with the help of the docs), but I always get the error message Can't call method "OpenMultipart" without a package or object reference at btag.pl line 40, <DATA> line 1.
Does anyone have an idea what this means (after all, I am using the $sender variable)?

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Mail::Sender;
use Term::ReadKey;

my ($mail_server, $id, $pswd);

print "Enter SMTP mail server > ";
chomp($mail_server = <>);
$mail_server |= 'mail.Squirrel.org';

print "Enter user name > ";
chomp($id = <>);

print "Enter password > ";
ReadMode( "noecho" );
chomp($pswd = <>);
ReadMode( "restore" );
system('cls');

my $sender = new Mail::Sender { 'smtp'      => $mail_server,
                                'from'      => $id,
                                'auth'      => 'CRAM-MD5',
                                'authid'    => $id,
                                'authpwd'   => $pswd,
                                'subject'   => 'Birthday invitation',
                                'boundary'  => 'A boring Multipart bou
+ndary',
                                'multipart' => 'mixed',
                                'encoding'  => 'Quoted-printable',
                                'confirm'   => 'reading',
                                'keepconnection' => 'true'};
$Mail::Sender::NO_X_MAILER = "true";
$pswd = 'Thought it, sucker!';

for (<DATA>) {
   my ($last, $first, $gender, $email) = split;
   $sender->OpenMultipart({ 'to' => "$first $last <$email>" }); ### li
+ne 40
   $sender->( { 'Part' => 'multipart/alternative' } );
   my $msg = <<END_OF_TEXT;
Plain text message with Umlauts(äöü) to [fname].
END_OF_TEXT
   $msg =~ s/[fname]/$first/g;
   $sender->Part( { ctype => 'text/plain', encoding => 'iso-8859-1', m
+sg => $msg });
   $msg = <<END_OF_TEXT;
<html>
<head><title>B'day invitation</title></head>
<body>
<h1>Invitation</h1>
HTML message with Umlauts(&auml;&ouml;&uuml;) to [fname].
</body>
</html>
END_OF_TEXT
   $msg =~ s/[fname]/$first/g;
   $sender->Part({ ctype => 'text/html', msg => $msg });
   $sender->EndPart('multipart/alternative');
   $sender->Close();
}
$sender->close('all');
__DATA__
Squirrel         Combat m  Combat@Squirrel.org
[download]

Thanks in advance, CombatSquirrel.

Comment on Problems using Mail::Sender Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Problems using Mail::Sender by tcf22 (Priest) on Aug 22, 2003 at 17:03 UTC
You need to check to make sure that the object is created and that the message opens successfully. Try this: `my $sender; unless(ref($sender = new Mail::Sender { 'smtp' => $mail_server, 'from' => $id, 'auth' => 'CRAM-MD5', 'authid' => $id, 'authpwd' => $pswd, 'subject' => 'Birthday invitation', 'boundary' => 'A boring Multipart bou +ndary', 'multipart' => 'mixed', 'encoding' => 'Quoted-printable', 'confirm' => 'reading', 'keepconnection' => 'true'})) { die "Creating obejct failed: $Mail::Sender::Error\n"; }` [download] You also need to check the `OpenMultipart` call for errors. You should always write your code as if every part of it will break, because unless you live in a perfect world, it probably eventually will.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Problems using Mail::Sender by Jenda (Abbot) on Aug 22, 2003 at 18:40 UTC
:-) You can also instruct the newest versions of Mail::Sender to throw an exception (die()) in case of errors. I guess that's a bit safer and easier since then you do not have to worry about each and every method call and just catch the exception where it makes most sense: `eval { my $sender = new Mail::Sender { 'on_errors' => 'die', 'smtp' => $mail_server, 'from' => $id, 'auth' => 'CRAM-MD5', 'authid' => $id, 'authpwd' => $pswd, 'subject' => 'Birthday invitation', 'boundary' => 'A boring Multipart boundary', 'multipart' => 'mixed', 'encoding' => 'Quoted-printable', 'confirm' => 'reading', 'keepconnection' => 'true'}); $sender->OpenMultipart(...); $sender->Part(...); ... }; if ($@) { print "Failed to sent the message: $@\n"; } ...` [download] Jenda Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. -- Rick Osborne Edit by castaway: Closed small tag in signature	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Problems using Mail::Sender by CombatSquirrel (Hermit) on Aug 22, 2003 at 17:15 UTC
Thanks for your tip, I should've known it (I learned it that way, after all :-). Anyways, the main problem turned out to be that the `$mail_server` variable was somehow affected; I replaced it by a constant string and everything worked. I also spotted some beginner's mistakes in my code, such as not escaping the square brackets. Everything is fixed now and I should be able to do the rest on my own. Thanks, all.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Problems using Mail::Sender by dreadpiratepeter (Priest) on Aug 22, 2003 at 16:53 UTC
my guess would be that the call to new errored out and returned an error code instead of an object. -pete "Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere."	[reply]
Re: Re: Problems using Mail::Sender by CombatSquirrel (Hermit) on Aug 22, 2003 at 17:04 UTC
Actually, you are right, it returns error code -1, which is, according to the docs, "smtphost unknown". The only problem with that is that another program I wrote using `Mail::Sender`, which uses the same host (I double-checked) works just fine. I have the impression it's something about the multipart-thing. Thanks a lot, though.	[reply] [d/l]