Sending e-mail with attachments.

[Anonymous Monk]

I was reading Perl Script, MS OutLook and saw a link posted to How do I send e-mail from my Perl Program?. I used the example code and it worked (see below). Can I send e-mail with attachments (Excel, Word, etc.) using this stanard version of Perl (This is perl, v5.6.1 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread)? That is, can I do it without CPAN downloads?

Thanks.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Net::SMTP;

my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new('MAILSERVER') or die $!;

my ($from, $to) = ('[e-mail]', '[e-mail]');
my ($subject, $message) = ('Test subject', 'Test message');

$smtp->mail( $from );
$smtp->to( $to );
$smtp->data();
$smtp->datasend("To: $to\n");
$smtp->datasend("From: $from\n");
$smtp->datasend("Subject: $subject\n");
$smtp->datasend("\n"); # done with header
$smtp->datasend($message);
$smtp->dataend();
$smtp->quit(); # all done. message sent.

[periapt]

I don't think that Net::SMTP allows for attachments but the module Mime::Lite does. Mime::Lite is part of Activestate's core distribution. Below is a very stripped down example of using the module. I copped it out of a running program and took out the program specific variables and references so it may not work right out of the can but it should give you an idea.


#!/usr/local/ActivePerl-5.6/bin/perl
# Compiler directives and Includes
use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use Mime::Lite;

# Constants and pragmas
use constant TRUE      => scalar 1;
use constant FALSE     => scalar 0;

#####################################################################;
#main()
{
    my @to      = ();
    my @cc      = ();
    my @bcc     = ();
    my $subject = '';
    my %mailhdr = ();
    my $msg     = '';
    my $body    = '';
    my $mailsvr  = '';
    my $filename = '';
    my $path     = '';
    my $type     = '';
    my $tmp      = '';
    my $from     = '';
    my %mimetype = ('zip' =>'application/zip',
                    'pdf'=>'application/pdf',
                    'html'=>'text/html',
                    'txt'=>'text/plain',       
                    'ps'  =>'application/postcript',
                    'tgz'=>'application/gzip', 
                    'tab' =>'text/tab-separated-values',
                    'htm'=>'text/html',
                    'rtf'=>'text/richtext',
                    'doc'=>'application/msword',
                    'gzip'=>'application/gzip',
                    'gz' =>'application/gzip',);

    $mailhdr{From}    = "$from";
    $mailhdr{To}      = \@to;
    $mailhdr{Cc}      = \@cc  if scalar @cc;
    $mailhdr{Bcc}     = \@bcc if scalar @bcc;
    $mailhdr{Subject} = "$subject";
    $mailhdr{Type}    = 'multipart/mixed'; # indicates attachments
    
    $msg = MIME::Lite->new( %mailhdr );    

    $msg->attach(Type     =>'TEXT',
                 Data     =>"$body"
                );

    $tmp = (exists($mimetype{$type})) 
               ? $mimetype{$type} 
               : 'application/octet-stream' ;
    $msg->attach(Type     =>"$tmp",
                 Path     =>"$path",
                 Filename =>"$filename",
                 Disposition => 'attachment'
                );

    MIME::Lite->send('smtp', "$mailsvr", Timeout=>60);
    eval{$msg->send};                      # send email

    exit 0; 
   
} #end main()
######################################################################

[drewbie]

I've included a shorter snippet from production code below. You can combine the object instantiation & text part of the email in new(). The attach param is an array ref of attachments. In my case, I have the data in memory from a dynamically generated PDF, but I believe you can also give a path to a file as well.

One option to attach() is Filename, which I recommend you use to set a sane name for the attachment, ie. "Your_documents.pdf". You'll need some code to set $mime_type. My code only attaches PDF files, so I just hardcoded it.

sub send_mime {
    my $class = shift;
    my %args = (from=>'',
        to=>'',
        subject=>'Default Subject',
        body=>'',
        attach=>[], # [{data=>\$content, name=>'foo'}]
        @_,
           );

    # 1. create main body of email
    my $body = $args{body};
    $body = ref($body) ? $$body : $body;
    my $msg = MIME::Lite->new(From=>$args{from},
                  To=>$args{to},
                  Subject=>$args{subject},
                  Type=>'TEXT',
                  Data=>$body,
                 );

    # 2. attach file(s)
    foreach my $attach ( @{$args{attach}} ) {
    my $data = $attach->{data};
    $msg->attach(Type=>$mime_type,
             Data=>$$data,
             Filename=>$attach->{name},
            );
    }

    # 3. deliver email
    $msg->send();
}

[eclark]

You can do it without a CPAN module, but you'll have to write a great deal of code. It is not easy.

[vek]

...can I do it without CPAN downloads?

Perhaps it would help if you explained why you need to do it without CPAN downloads. MIME::Lite is your friend.

c:\>ppm install Mime-Lite

[runrig]

That is, can I do it without CPAN downloads?

Yes, you can copy and paste the code from MIME::Lite or Mail::Sender into your code. Though IMHO it would make more sense to just install one of those modules.