Send mail in html format from perl script

Question

I am working on unix environment and have a perl scrip to send mail, but i need to send HTML formatted mail,but it printing as it is html code. so could anyone please let me know how it manipulate or compile the html and send formatted mail.

#!/usr/bin/perl
#print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";

print("enter my name");
chop($name=<stdin>);
&mail();


sub mail{

$title='perl';
$to='abcd@acv.com';
$from= 'xyz@xyz.com';
$subject=$name;

open(MAIL, "|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t");

## Mail Header
print MAIL "To: $to\n";
print MAIL "From: $from\n";
print MAIL "Subject: $subject\n\n";
## Mail Body
print MAIL $name;
print MAIL "<html><body><p>";
print MAIL "<b>Hello</b>";
print MAIL "This is a test message from Cyberciti.biz! You can write your";

print MAIL "</p></body></html>";
##print MAIL "$title";
close(MAIL);
}

Its printing in mail:

<html><body><p><b>Hello</b>This is a test message from Cyberciti.biz! You can write your</p></body></html>

like this...as it is seems its not converting it into html format. So please help me over this.

check http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/MIME-Lite-3.029/lib/MIME/Lite.pm or http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Email-MIME-1.920/lib/Email/MIME.pm — mpapec, Jun 19 '13 at 07:07
just one ques, can't i use html formatting with sendmail protocol ? — SteveScm, Jun 19 '13 at 08:26
Possible duplicate of [How can I send an HTML email with Perl?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2623651/how-can-i-send-an-html-email-with-perl) — Eugen Konkov, Dec 10 '16 at 21:10

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 19 '13 at 11:16

The fix for your problem is to add a content-type header saying that the mail is text/html.

However.

Please don't send HTML email without sending an equivalent plain-text attachment as well.
Please make your life easier by using a module. Stuff in the Email::* namespace is best.
Please throw away whatever book told you to call Perl subroutines using &. It's almost twenty years out of date.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '13 at 07:32

1

Use Mime::Lite. This an example:

my $msg = MIME::Lite->new(
     To      => 'you@yourhost.com',
     Subject => 'HTML example',
     Type    => 'text/html',
     Data    => '<h1>Hello world!</h1>'
);

$msg->send();

answered Jun 19 '13 at 07:32

Miguel Prz

13,718
29
42

could you please explain this line: MIME::Lite->new( – SteveScm Jun 19 '13 at 07:44
i run this code, but its not sending the mail , instead it printing the same line on console.
A message has been sent from to
– SteveScm Jun 19 '13 at 07:58
you need to install the CPAN MIME::Lite module, and then use it. See the link I provided – Miguel Prz Jun 19 '13 at 07:58
could i check on my linux machine whether it is installed or not. Any command – SteveScm Jun 19 '13 at 07:59
run "ppm install MIME::Lite" if it is installed it will skip, if not, it will install it. – Harry Barry Jun 19 '13 at 08:13
@Harry: Most Linux machine won't have `ppm` available. – Dave Cross Jun 19 '13 at 11:17

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

0

Use Net::SMTP instead

Here is a link already existing on how to use it in HTML format.

Net::SMTP using HTML

The same link also shows you how you can Use Mime::Lite.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

Community

1
1

answered Jun 19 '13 at 07:15

Harry Barry

194
7

thanks . Could you please explain me what are these Net::SMTP. As i am new to perl and net protocol. – SteveScm Jun 19 '13 at 07:43
@ Rohit889 Net::SMTP is module for perl, it allows you to do certain things instead of having to call external commands. so instead of you having to call Blat or sendmail as external command, you just install the module and then use it in your script. – Harry Barry Jun 19 '13 at 08:08
@Rohit889 Not all modules come preinstalled on perl, you need to install it yourself. easiest method is to run from command line "ppm install Net::SMTP" if behind a firewall, run this first. "set http_proxy=http://username:password@proxy_servername_or_IP:port" – Harry Barry Jun 19 '13 at 08:10
Just one ques, can't i use html with sendmail protocol ? – SteveScm Jun 19 '13 at 08:18
I am not sure, is sendmail not the old blat? I have not used it in a very long time. – Harry Barry Jun 19 '13 at 08:21

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 28 '20 at 13:15

Many of modern smtp-servers use SSL Authentication

So you can use Net::SMTP::SSL

The code looks like

use Net::SMTP::SSL; 

my $to = 'tomail@server.com';
my $subject = 'Message subject';
my $message = '<h1>Hello</h1>';

my $user = 'USERLOGIN';
my $pass = 'USERPASSWORD';

my $server     = 'smtp.server.com';
my $from_name  = 'NAME';
my $from_email = 'userlogin@server.com';

my $smtps = Net::SMTP::SSL->new($server, Port => 465, DEBUG => 1) or warn "$!\n"; 

defined ($smtps->auth($user, $pass)) or die "Can't authenticate: $!\n";

$smtps->mail($from_email);
$smtps->to($to);
$smtps->data();
$smtps->datasend("To: $to\n");
$smtps->datasend(qq^From: "$from_name" <$from_email>\n^);
$smtps->datasend("Subject: $subject\n\n");
$smtps->datasend($message."\n");
$smtps->dataend();

if ($smtps->quit()) {
    print "Ok";
}

Send mail in html format from perl script

4 Answers4