Why can't I pipe the output of uuencode to mailx in a single Perl open statement?

Question

Here's my code that is not working:

print "To: ";  my $to=<>;  chomp $to;
print "From: ";  my $from=<>;  chomp $from;
print "Attach: "; my $attach=<>; chomp $attach;
print "Subject: "; my $subject=<>; chomp $subject;
print "Message: "; my $message=<>; chomp $message;

my $mail_fh = \*MAIL;
open $mail_fh, "uuencode $attach $attach |mailx -m -s \"$subject\" -r $from $to";
print $mail_fh $message;
close($mail_fh);

The mailx command works fine off the command line, but not in this Perl script context.

Any idea what I'm missing?

I suspect that this line's format/syntax:

open $mail_fh, "uuencode $attach $attach |mailx -m -s \"$subject\" -r $from $to";

is the culprit.

fyi - the entire script works when uuencode $attach $attach is removed from the line beginning with "open" — CheeseConQueso, Mar 25 '10 at 20:43

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 25 '10 at 23:32

2

Do you really want to use external binaries for either the uuencode or the mailx bit? UUencode is almost trivial with pack.

answered Mar 25 '10 at 23:32

brian d foy

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Quite trivial - `my $encoded = pack 'u', $data;` The `u` template is a bit weird, and isn't explained well in perlfunc. There is an example in perlpacktut though: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlpacktut.html#Uuencoding – daotoad Mar 26 '10 at 05:12

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 25 '10 at 23:37

2

You just need an extra | at the beginning:

open $mail_fh, "|uuencode $attach $attach |mailx -m -s \"$subject\" -r $from $to";

answered Mar 25 '10 at 23:37

Gabe

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score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 26 '10 at 16:44

1

There are other ways to send mail. See the How do I send mail? in perlfaq9.

edited Mar 26 '10 at 16:44

brian d foy

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answered Mar 26 '10 at 03:44

ghostdog74

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Why can't I pipe the output of uuencode to mailx in a single Perl open statement?

3 Answers3