From: PerlFAQ Server on
This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq9.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

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9.20: How do I send mail?

Use the "sendmail" program directly:

open(SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t -odq")
or die "Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n";
print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
From: User Originating Mail <me\@host>
To: Final Destination <you\@otherhost>
Subject: A relevant subject line

Body of the message goes here after the blank line
in as many lines as you like.
EOF
close(SENDMAIL) or warn "sendmail didn't close nicely";

The -oi option prevents "sendmail" from interpreting a line consisting
of a single dot as "end of message". The -t option says to use the
headers to decide who to send the message to, and -odq says to put the
message into the queue. This last option means your message won't be
immediately delivered, so leave it out if you want immediate delivery.

Alternate, less convenient approaches include calling "mail" (sometimes
called "mailx") directly or simply opening up port 25 have having an
intimate conversation between just you and the remote SMTP daemon,
probably "sendmail".

Or you might be able use the CPAN module "Mail::Mailer":

use Mail::Mailer;

$mailer = Mail::Mailer->new();
$mailer->open({ From => $from_address,
To => $to_address,
Subject => $subject,
})
or die "Can't open: $!\n";
print $mailer $body;
$mailer->close();

The "Mail::Internet" module uses "Net::SMTP" which is less Unix-centric
than "Mail::Mailer", but less reliable. Avoid raw SMTP commands. There
are many reasons to use a mail transport agent like "sendmail". These
include queuing, MX records, and security.



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