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NAME

Mail::Sender - module for sending mails with attachments through an SMTP server

Version 0.7.01

SYNOPSIS

use Mail::Sender;
$sender = new Mail::Sender
 {smtp => 'mail.yourdomain.com', from => 'your@address.com'};
$sender->MailFile({to => 'some@address.com',
 subject => 'Here is the file',
 msg => "I'm sending you the list you wanted.",
 file => 'filename.txt'});

DESCRIPTION

Mail::Sender provides an object oriented interface to sending mails. It doesn't need any outer program. It connects to a mail server directly from Perl, using Socket.

Sends mails directly from Perl through a socket connection.

CONSTRUCTORS

new Mail::Sender

new Mail::Sender ([from [,replyto [,to [,smtp [,subject [,headers [,boundary]]]]]]])
new Mail::Sender {[from => 'somebody@somewhere.com'] , [to => 'else@nowhere.com'] [...]}

Prepares a sender. This doesn't start any connection to the server. You have to use $Sender-Open> or $Sender-OpenMultipart> to start talking to the server.

The parameters are used in subsequent calls to $Sender-Open> and $Sender-OpenMultipart>. Each such call changes the saved variables. You can set smtp,from and other options here and then use the info in all messages.

from      = the senders e-mail address

replyto   = the reply-to address

to        = the recipient's address(es)

cc        = address(es) to send a copy (carbon copy)

bcc       = address(es) to send a copy (blind carbon copy)
            these addresses will not be visible in the mail!

smtp      = the IP or domain address of your SMTP (mail) server
            This is the name of your LOCAL mail server, do not try to guess
            and contact directly the adressee's mailserver!

subject   = the subject of the message

headers   = the additional headers

boundary  = the message boundary

multipart = the MIME subtype for the whole message (Mixed/Related/Alternative)
 you may need to change this setting if you want to send a HTML body with some
 inline images, or if you want to post the message in plain text as well as
 HTML (alternative). See the examples at the end of the docs.
 You may also use the nickname "subtype".

type      = the content type of a multipart message, may be usefull for
            multipart/related

ctype     = the content type of a single part message

 Please do not confuse these two. The 'type' parameter is used to specify
 the overall content type of a multipart message (for example a HTML document
 with inlined images) while ctype is an ordinary content type for a single
 part message. For example a HTML mail message.

encoding  = encoding of a single part message or the body of a multipart
 message. If the text of the message contains some extended characters or
 very long lines you should use 'encoding => "Quoted-printable"' in the
 call to Open(), OpenMultipart(), MailMsg() or MailFile().
 Keep in mind that if you use some encoding you should either use SendEnc()
 or encode the data yourself !

charset   = the charset of the message

client     = the name of the client computer. During the connection you send
 the mailserver your name. Usualy a "localhost" is sufficient, but sometimes
 you need to specify some real name. Usualy something like
 `hostname`.'.mycompany.com'. But I leave this for you.
 Mail::Sender doesn't try to guess the name, it sends "localhost" if you do
 not specify otherwise.


return codes:
 ref to a Mail::Sender object =  success
 -1 = $smtphost unknown
 -2 = socket() failed
 -3 = connect() failed
 -4 = service not available
 -5 = unspecified communication error
 -6 = local user $to unknown on host $smtp
 -7 = transmission of message failed
 -8 = argument $to empty
 -9 = no message specified in call to MailMsg or MailFile
 -10 = no file name specified in call to SendFile or MailFile
 -11 = file not found
 -12 = not available in singlepart mode
  $Mail::Sender::Error contains a textual description of last error.

METHODS

Open

Open([from [, replyto [, to [, smtp [, subject [, headers]]]]]])
Open({[from => "somebody@somewhere.com"] , [to => "else@nowhere.com"] [...]})

Opens a new message. If some parameters are unspecified or empty, it uses the parameters passed to the "$Sender=new Mail::Sender(...)";

see new Mail::Sender for info about the parameters.

OpenMultipart

OpenMultipart([from [, replyto [, to [, smtp [, subject [, headers [, boundary]]]]]]])
OpenMultipart({[from => "somebody@somewhere.com"] , [to => "else@nowhere.com"] [...]})

Opens a multipart message. If some parameters are unspecified or empty, it uses the parameters passed to the $Sender=new Mail::Sender(...).

see new Mail::Sender for info about the parameters.

MailMsg

MailMsg([from [, replyto [, to [, smtp [, subject [, headers]]]]]], message)
MailMsg({[from => "somebody@somewhere.com"]
         [, to => "else@nowhere.com"] [...], msg => "Message"})

Sends a message. If a mail in $sender is opened it gets closed and a new mail is created and sent. $sender is then closed. If some parameters are unspecified or empty, it uses the parameters passed to the "$Sender=new Mail::Sender(...)";

see new Mail::Sender for info about the parameters.

MailFile

MailFile([from [, replyto [, to [, smtp [, subject [, headers]]]]]], message, file(s))
MailFile({[from => "somebody@somewhere.com"]
          [, to => "else@nowhere.com"] [...],
          msg => "Message", file => "File"})

Sends one or more files by mail. If a mail in $sender is opened it gets closed and a new mail is created and sent. $sender is then closed. If some parameters are unspecified or empty, it uses the parameters passed to the "$Sender=new Mail::Sender(...)";

The file parameter may be a "filename", a "list, of, file, names" or a \@list of file names.

see new Mail::Sender for info about the parameters.

Just keep in mind that parameters like ctype, charset and encoding will be used for the attached file, not the body of the message. If you want to specify those parameters for the body you have to use b_ctype, b_charset and b_encoding. Sorry.

Send

Send(@strings)

Prints the strings to the socket. Doesn't add any end-of-line characters. You should use \r\n as the end-of-line.

SendLine

SendLine(@strings)

Prints the strings to the socket. Adds the end-of-line character at the end.

SendEnc

SendEnc(@strings)

Prints the strings to the socket. Doesn't add any end-of-line characters. You should use \r\n as the end-of-line. Encodes the text using the selected encoding (Base64/Quoted-printable)

SendLineEnc

SendLineEnc(@strings)

Prints the strings to the socket. Add the end-of-line character at the end. Encodes the text using the selected encoding (Base64/Quoted-printable)

Do NOT mix up Send[Line][Ex] and Send[Line]Enc! SendEnc does some buffering necessary for correct Base64 encoding, and Send is not aware of that!

Usage of Send[Line][Ex] in non 7BIT parts not recommended. Using Send(encode_base64($string)) may, but may NOT work! In particular if you use several such to create one part, the data is very likely to get crippled.

SendEx

SendEx(@strings)

Prints the strings to the socket. Doesn't add any end-of-line characters. Changes all end-of-lines to \r\n.

SendLineEx

SendLineEx(@strings)

Prints the strings to the socket. Doesn't add any end-of-line characters. Changes all end-of-lines to \r\n.

Part

Part( I<description>, I<ctype>, I<encoding>, I<disposition> [, I<content_id>]);
Part( [description => "desc"], [ctype], [encoding], [disposition], [content_id]});

Prints a part header for the multipart message.
The undef or empty variables are ignored.

description

The title for this part.

ctype

the content type (MIME type) of this part. May contain some other parameters, such as charset or name.

Defaults to "application/octet-stream".

encoding

the encoding used for this part of message. Eg. Base64, Uuencode, 7BIT ...

Defaults to "7BIT".

disposition

This parts disposition. Eg: 'attachment; filename="send.pl"'.

Defaults to "attachment". If you specify "none" or "", the Content-disposition: line will not be included in the headers.

content_id

The content id of the part, used in multipart/related. If not specified, the header is not included.

Body

Body([charset [, encoding [, content-type]]]);

Sends the head of the multipart message body. You can specify the charset and the encoding. Default is "US-ASCII","7BIT",'text/plain'.

If you pass undef or zero as the parameter, this function uses the default value:

Body(0,0,'text/html');

SendFile

SendFile( I<description>, I<ctype>, I<encoding>, I<disposition>, I<file>);
SendFile( { [description => "desc"] , [ctype => "ctype"], [encoding => "encoding"],
            [disposition => "disposition"], file => "file"});

Sends a file as a separate part of the mail message. Only in multipart mode.

description

The title for this part.

ctype

the content type (MIME type) of this part. May contain some other parameters, such as charset or name.

Defaults to "application/octet-stream".

encoding

the encoding used for this part of message. Eg. Base64, Uuencode, 7BIT ...

Defaults to "Base64".

disposition

This parts disposition. Eg: 'attachment; filename="send.pl"'. If you use 'attachment; filename=*' the * will be replaced by the respective names of the sent files.

Defaults to "attachment; filename=*". If you do not want to include this header use "" as the value.

file

The name of the file to send or a 'list, of, names' or a ['reference','to','a','list','of','filenames']. Each file will be sent as a separate part.

content_id

The content id of the message part. Used in multipart/related.

Special values:
 "*" => the name of the file
 "#" => autoincremented number (starting from 0)

Close

$sender->Close;

Close and send the mail. This method should be called automatically when destructing the object, but you should call it yourself just to be sure it gets called. And you should do it as soon as possible to close the connection and free the socket.

The mail is being sent to server, but is not processed by the server till the sender object is closed!

Cancel

$sender->Cancel;

Cancel an opened message.

SendFile and other methods may set $sender->{'error'}. In that case "undef $sender" calls $sender->Cancel not $sender->Close!!!

@Mail::Sender::Errors

Contains the description of errors returned by functions in Mail::Sender.

Usage: @Mail::Sender::Errors[$sender->{error}]

CONFIG

If you create a file named Sender.config in the same directory where Sender.pm resides, this file will be "require"d as soon as you "use Mail::Sender" in your script. Of course the Sender.config MUST "return a true value", that is it has to be succesfully compiled and the last statement must return a true value. You may use this to forbide the use of Mail::Sender to some users.

You may define the default settings for new Mail::Sender objects and do a few more things.

The default options are stored in hash %Mail::Sender::default. You may use all the examples you'd use in new, Open, OpenMultipart, MailMsg or MailFile.

Eg.
 %default = (
   smtp => 'mail.mccann.cz',
   from => Win32::LoginName.'@mccann.cz',
   client => Win32::NodeName.'mccann.cz'
 );
 # of course you will use your own mail server here !

The other options you may set here (or later of course) are $Mail::Sender::SITE_HEADERS and $Mail::Sender::NO_X_MAILER.

The $Mail::Sender::SITE_HEADERS may contain headers that will be added to each mail message sent by this script, the $Mail::Sender::NO_X_MAILER disables the header item specifying that the message was sent by Mail::Sender.

!!! $Mail::Sender::SITE_HEADERS may NEVER end with \r\n !!!

If you want to set the $Mail::Sender::SITE_HEADERS for every script sent from your server without your users being able to change it you may use this hack:

$loginname = something_that_identifies_the_user();
eval qq{*Mail::Sender::SITE_HEADERS = 'X-Sender: $loginname via $0'};

You may even "install" your custom function that will be evaluated for each message just before contacting the server. You may change all the options from within as well as stop sending the message.

All you have to do is to create a function named SiteHook in Mail::Sender package. This function will get the Mail::Sender object as its first argument. If it returns a TRUE value the message is sent, if it returns FALSE the sending is canceled and the user gets "Site specific error" error message.

If you want to give some better error message you may do it like this :

sub SiteHook {
 my $self = shift;
 if (whatever($self)) {
   $self->{'error'} = SITEERROR;
   $Mail::Sender::Error = "I don't like this mail";
   return 0
 } else {
   return 1;
 }
}

This example will ensure the from address is the users real address :

sub SiteHook {
 my $self = shift;
 $self->{fromaddr} = getlogin.'@yoursite.com';
 $self->{from} = getlogin.'@yoursite.com';
 1;
}

Please note that at this stage the from address is in two different object properties.

$self->{from} is the address as it will appear in the mail, that is it may include the full name of the user or any other comment ( "Jan Krynicky <jenda@krynicky.cz>" for example), while the $self->{fromaddr} is realy just the email address per se and it will be used in conversation with the SMTP server. It must be without comments ("jenda@krynicky.cz" for example)!

Without write access to .../lib/Mail/Sender.pm or .../lib/Mail/Sender.config your users will then be unable to get rid of this header. Well ... everything is doable, if he's cheeky enough ... :-(

So if you take care of some site with virtual servers for several clients and implement some policy via SiteHook() or $Mail::Sender::SITE_HEADERS search the clients' scripts for "SiteHook" and "SITE_HEADERS" from time to time. To see who's cheating.

EXAMPLES

use Mail::Sender;

#$sender = new Mail::Sender { from => 'somebody@somewhere.com',
   smtp => 'ms.chipnet.cz', boundary => 'This-is-a-mail-boundary-435427'};
# # if you do not care about errors.
# # otherwise use
#
ref ($sender = new Mail::Sender { from => 'somebody@somewhere.com',
      smtp => 'ms.chipnet.cz', boundary => 'This-is-a-mail-boundary-435427'})
or die "Error($sender) : $Mail::Sender::Error\n";

$sender->Open({to => 'friend@other.com', subject => 'Hello dear friend'});
$sender->SendLine("How are you?");
$sender->SendLine;
$sender->Send(<<'*END*');
I've found these jokes.

 Doctor, I feel like a pack of cards.
 Sit down and I'll deal with you later.

 Doctor, I keep thinking I'm a dustbin.
 Don't talk rubbish.

Hope you like'em. Jenda
*END*

$sender->Close;

$sender->Open({to => 'mama@home.org, papa@work.com',
               cc => 'somebody@somewhere.com',
               subject => 'Sorry, I'll come later.'});
$sender->SendLine("I'm sorry, but due to a big load of work,
   I'll come at 10pm at best.");
$sender->SendLine("\nHi, Jenda");

$sender->Close;

$sender->OpenMultipart({to => 'Perl-Win32-Users@activeware.foo',
                        subject => 'Mail::Sender.pm - new module'});
$sender->Body;
$sender->Send(<<'*END*');
Here is a new module Mail::Sender.
It provides an object based interface to sending SMTP mails.
It uses a direct socket connection, so it doesn't need any
additional program.

Enjoy, Jenda
*END*
$sender->SendFile(
 {description => 'Perl module Mail::Sender.pm',
  ctype => 'application/x-zip-encoded',
  encoding => 'Base64',
  disposition => 'attachment; filename="Sender.zip"; type="ZIP archive"',
  file => 'sender.zip'
 });
$sender->Close;

_END_

If everything you need is to send a simple message you may use:

use Mail::Sender;

ref ($sender = new Mail::Sender({from => 'somebody@somewhere.com',smtp
=> 'ms.chipnet.cz'})) or die "$Mail::Sender::Error\n";

(ref ($sender->MailMsg({to =>'Jenda@Krynicky.cz', subject => 'this is a test',
                        msg => "Hi Johnie.\nHow are you?"}))
 and print "Mail sent OK."
)
or die "$Mail::Sender::Error\n";
__END__

If you want to attach some files:

use Mail::Sender;

ref ($sender = new Mail::Sender({from => 'somebody@somewhere.com',smtp
=> 'mail.yourdomain.com'})) or die "$Mail::Sender::Error\n";

(ref ($sender->MailFile(
 {to =>'you@address.com', subject => 'this is a test',
  msg => "Hi Johnie.\nI'm sending you the pictures you wanted.",
  file => 'image1.jpg,image2.jpg'
 }))
 and print "Mail sent OK."
)
or die "$Mail::Sender::Error\n";
__END__

If you want to send a HTML mail:

use Mail::Sender;
open IN, $htmlfile or die "Cannot open $htmlfile : $!\n";
$sender = new Mail::Sender {smtp => 'mail.yourdomain.com'};
$sender->Open({ from => 'your@address.com', to => 'other@address.com', subject => 'HTML test',
       headers => "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\nContent-type: text/html\r\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit"
}) or die $Mail::Sender::Error,"\n";

while (<IN>) { $sender->Send($_) };
close IN;
$sender->Close();
__END__

If you want to send a HTML with some inline images :

use strict;
use Mail::Sender;
my $recipients = 'somebody@somewhere.com';
my $sender = new Mail::Sender {smtp => 'your.mailhost.com'};
if ($sender->OpenMultipart({from => 'itstech2@gate.net', to => $recipients,
                      subject => 'Embedded Image Test', subtype => 'related',
                      boundary => 'boundary-test-1',
                      type => 'multipart/related'}) > 0) {
 $sender->SendFile(
        {description => 'html body',
        ctype => 'text/html; charset=us-ascii',
        encoding => '7bit',
        disposition => 'NONE',
        file => 'test.html'
  });
 $sender->SendFile(
  {description => 'ed\'s gif',
   ctype => 'image/gif',
   encoding => 'base64',
   disposition => "inline; filename=\"apache_pb.gif\";\r\nContent-ID: <ed1>",
   file => 'apache_pb.gif'
  });
 $sender->Close() or die "Close failed! $Mail::Sender::Error\n";
} else {
 die "Cannot send mail: $Mail::Sender::Error\n";
}
__END__

In the HTML you'll have this : ... <IMG src="cid:ed1"> ...

Please keep in mind that the image name is unimportant, the Content-ID is what counts!

The module was made so that you could create an object initialized with all the necesary options and then send several messages without need to specify the SMTP server and others each time. If you need to send only one mail using MailMsg() or MailFile() you do not have to create a named object and then call the method. You may do it like this :

(new Mail::Sender)->MailMsg({smtp => 'mail.company.com', ...});

WARNING

DO NOT mix Open(Multipart)|Send(Line)(Ex)|Close with MailMsg or MailFile. Both Mail(Msg/File) close any Open-ed mail. Do not try this:

$sender = new Mail::Sender ...;
$sender->OpenMultipart...;
$sender->Body;
$sender->Send("...");
$sender->MailFile({file => 'something.ext');
$sender->Close;

This WON'T work!!!

BUGS

This module (as well as those I used as an example when I wrote it) doesn't work with qmail. To make this clear, the local SMTP server you contact directly from the script (Open({smtp => ...})) may not be qmail. The problem is that the module expects a one-line response from the server and gets confused if it gets a longer response. If you set up qmail to send only one-line responses you shell be OK. Otherwise you need to use a different SMTP server. Sorry, I'll fix this as soon as I have some spare time.

DISCLAIMER

This module is based on SendMail.pm Version : 1.21 that appeared in Perl-Win32-Users@activeware.com mailing list. I don't remember the name of the poster and it's not mentioned in the script. Thank you mr. undef.

AUTHOR

Jan Krynicky <Jenda@Krynicky.cz>

With help of Rodrigo Siqueira <rodrigo@insite.com.br>, Ed McGuigan <itstech1@gate.net>, and others.

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

To install Mail::Sender, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.

cpanm

cpanm Mail::Sender

CPAN shell

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Mail::Sender

For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.

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Take me over?

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

CONSTRUCTORS

METHODS

CONFIG

EXAMPLES

WARNING

BUGS

DISCLAIMER

AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

Module Install Instructions