"sendmail" command bug. Getting distorted mails also "!" chars are added

Question

I am creating HTML format for sending email in Java and using below UNIX script to send it:

(       echo "Subject: Test";
        echo "To: test@mail.com";
        echo "MIME-Version: 1.0";
        echo "Content-Type: text/html";
        echo "Content-Disposition: inline";
        echo "";
        cat HTML_Body
) | sendmail test@mail.com

But HTML_Body is getting distorted when I am receiving mails from this UNIX command, also some special characters like ! are also getting added along with the body, also the alignment of some cells are getting distorted.

When I am copying the HTML_Body from Java console, the body is created properly, but after sendmail command it is getting distorted.

I am using outlook, and Unix version is : AIX serverName 1 6

Also please suggest some other options for sending mail through UNIX or using Java. I tried creating file from Java and sending it as an attachment but, in that file also, content was getting distorted.

[Edit] Adding more details, this bug is exact the same explained here for sendmail command.

@icza it is because, as I said, I am sending HTML_Body, which is created in Java to Unix. — Vishrant, Sep 09 '14 at 09:22
Most likely a character encoding issue. Can you show us the Java code that creates the HTML_Body? — icza, Sep 09 '14 at 09:46
@icza I am using simple `for` loop that creates `` and `` and appending it to `StringBuffer` object and then by using `toString` method I am passing that String as HTML_Body — Vishrant, Sep 09 '14 at 11:31
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/60890/discussion-between-vishrant-and-icza). — Vishrant, Sep 09 '14 at 12:02
This is almost certainly an encoding issue. Make sure absolutely everything is utf8. — Mikkel Løkke, Sep 09 '14 at 12:14
Does `HTML_Body` begin with a blank line? If not, where's the delimiter between message headers and message body? — This isn't my real name, Sep 09 '14 at 14:27
@ElchononEdelson No HTML_Body does not begin with a blank line, I have used `echo ""` instead for the space between header and the body — Vishrant, Sep 09 '14 at 15:08
That was not shown in the question, earlier. Was that in the original code? If not, did adding it make a difference? — This isn't my real name, Sep 09 '14 at 15:47
@ElchononEdelson my mistake, I missed in question, but it was in original code. — Vishrant, Sep 09 '14 at 16:29
@icza you can see the sample code in the link I provided after edit. — Vishrant, Sep 11 '14 at 13:09

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 02 '21 at 22:25

1

I was also having issues with long html, some special chars were added. After I inserted a newline after every <tr>, the problem went away

edited Feb 02 '21 at 22:25

Sz.

3,342
1
30
43

answered Feb 02 '21 at 20:55

Sunil Ithappiri

11
1

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 09 '14 at 14:56

Sendmail line length limits

Sendmail as provided by sendmail.org imposes limit on line lengths (990 or 2048 bytes) and breaks longer lines.

You may
* use tool like mimencode to encode body in quoted-printable format
(requires changes in mime headers)
OR
* use tool like tidy to reformat your html file with line length limits

BTW There should be an empty line between email headers and email body (echo "").

"sendmail" command bug. Getting distorted mails also "!" chars are added

2 Answers2

Sendmail line length limits