mime::lite(3)

NAME

MIME::Lite - low-calorie MIME generator

SYNOPSIS

use MIME::Lite;
Create a single-part message:
### Create a new single-part message, to  send  a  GIF
file:
$msg = MIME::Lite->new(
             From     =>'me@myhost.com',
             To       =>'you@yourhost.com',
             Cc                     =>'some@other.com,
some@more.com',
             Subject  =>'Helloooooo, nurse!',
             Type     =>'image/gif',
             Encoding =>'base64',
             Path     =>'hellonurse.gif'
             );
Create a multipart message (i.e., one with attachments):
### Create a new multipart message:
$msg = MIME::Lite->new(
             From    =>'me@myhost.com',
             To      =>'you@yourhost.com',
             Cc                     =>'some@other.com,
some@more.com',
             Subject =>'A message with 2 parts...',
             Type    =>'multipart/mixed'
             );
###  Add  parts  (each  "attach" has same arguments as
"new"):
$msg->attach(Type     =>'TEXT',
             Data     =>"Here's the GIF file you wanted"
             );
$msg->attach(Type     =>'image/gif',
             Path     =>'aaa000123.gif',
             Filename =>'logo.gif',
             Disposition => 'attachment'
             );
Output a message:
### Format as a string:
$str = $msg->as_string;
### Print to a filehandle (say, a "sendmail" stream):
$msg->print(ENDMAIL);
Send a message:
###  Send  in  the  "best"  way (the default is to use
"sendmail"):
$msg->send;

DESCRIPTION

In the never-ending quest for great taste with fewer calo
ries, we proudly present: MIME::Lite.

MIME::Lite is intended as a simple, standalone module for
generating (not parsing!) MIME messages... specifically,
it allows you to output a simple, decent single- or multipart message with text or binary attachments. It does not
require that you have the Mail:: or MIME:: modules
installed.

You can specify each message part as either the literal
data itself (in a scalar or array), or as a string which
can be given to open() to get a readable filehandle (e.g., "<filename" or "somecommand|").

You don't need to worry about encoding your message data:
this module will do that for you. It handles the 5 stan
dard MIME encodings.

If you need more sophisticated behavior, please get the
MIME-tools package instead. I will be more likely to add
stuff to that toolkit over this one.

EXAMPLES

Create a simple message containing just text

$msg = MIME::Lite->new(

From =>'me@myhost.com',
To =>'you@yourhost.com',
Cc =>'some@other.com,

some@more.com',
Subject =>'Helloooooo, nurse!',
Data =>"How's it goin', eh?"
);

Create a simple message containing just an image

$msg = MIME::Lite->new(

From =>'me@myhost.com',
To =>'you@yourhost.com',
Cc =>'some@other.com,

some@more.com',
Subject =>'Helloooooo, nurse!',
Type =>'image/gif',
Encoding =>'base64',
Path =>'hellonurse.gif'
);

Create a multipart message

### Create the multipart "container":
$msg = MIME::Lite->new(

From =>'me@myhost.com',
To =>'you@yourhost.com',
Cc =>'some@other.com,

some@more.com',
Subject =>'A message with 2 parts...',
Type =>'multipart/mixed'
);

### Add the text message part:
### (Note that "attach" has same arguments as "new"):
$msg->attach(Type =>'TEXT',

Data =>"Here's the GIF file you want

ed"
);

### Add the image part:
$msg->attach(Type =>'image/gif',

Path =>'aaa000123.gif',
Filename =>'logo.gif',
Disposition => 'attachment'
);

Attach a GIF to a text message

This will create a multipart message exactly as above, but
using the "attach to singlepart" hack:

### Start with a simple text message:
$msg = MIME::Lite->new(

From =>'me@myhost.com',
To =>'you@yourhost.com',
Cc =>'some@other.com,

some@more.com',
Subject =>'A message with 2 parts...',
Type =>'TEXT',
Data =>"Here's the GIF file you want

ed"
);

### Attach a part... the make the message a multipart

automatically:
$msg->attach(Type =>'image/gif',

Path =>'aaa000123.gif',
Filename =>'logo.gif'
);

Attach a pre-prepared part to a message

### Create a standalone part:
$part = MIME::Lite->new(

Type =>'text/html',
Data =>'<H1>Hello</H1>',
);

$part->attr('content-type.charset' => 'UTF8');
$part->add('X-Comment' => 'A message for you');

### Attach it to any message:
$msg->attach($part);

Print a message to a filehandle

### Write it to a filehandle:
$msg->print(TDOUT);

### Write just the header:
$msg->print_header(TDOUT);

### Write just the encoded body:
$msg->print_body(TDOUT);

Print a message into a string

### Get entire message as a string:
$str = $msg->as_string;

### Get just the header:
$str = $msg->header_as_string;

### Get just the encoded body:
$str = $msg->body_as_string;

Send a message

### Send in the "best" way (the default is to use

"sendmail"):
$msg->send;

Send an HTML document... with images included!

$msg = MIME::Lite->new(

To =>'you@yourhost.com',
Subject =>'HTML with in-line images!',
Type =>'multipart/related'
);

$msg->attach(Type => 'text/html',

Data => qq{ <body>

Here's <i>my</i> image:
<img src="cid:myimage.gif">
</body> }

);

$msg->attach(Type => 'image/gif',

Id => 'myimage.gif',
Path => '/path/to/somefile.gif',
);

$msg->send();

Change how messages are sent

### Do something like this in your 'main':
if ($I_DONT_HAVE_SENDMAIL) {

MIME::Lite->send('smtp', "smtp.myisp.net", Time

out=>60);

}

### Now this will do the right thing:
$msg->send; ### will now use Net::SMTP as

shown above

PUBLIC INTERFACE

Global configuration

To alter the way the entire module behaves, you have the
following methods/options:

MIME::Lite->field_order()

When used as a classmethod, this changes the default
order in which headers are output for all messages.
However, please consider using the instance method
variant instead, so you won't stomp on other message
senders in the same application.

MIME::Lite->quiet()

This classmethod can be used to suppress/unsuppress
all warnings coming from this module.

MIME::Lite->send()

When used as a classmethod, this can be used to spec
ify a different default mechanism for sending message.
The initial default is:

MIME::Lite->send("sendmail", "/usr/lib/sendmail -t

-oi -oem");

However, you should consider the similar but smarter
and taint-safe variant:

MIME::Lite->send("sendmail");

Or, for non-Unix users:

MIME::Lite->send("smtp");

$MIME::Lite::AUTO_CC

If true, automatically send to the Cc/Bcc addresses
for send_by_smtp(). Default is true.

$MIME::Lite::AUTO_CONTENT_TYPE

If true, try to automatically choose the content type
from the file name in "new()"/"build()". In other
words, setting this true changes the default "Type"
from "TEXT" to "AUTO".

Default is false, since we must maintain backwardscompatibility with prior behavior. Please consider
keeping it false, and just using Type 'AUTO' when you
build() or attach().

$MIME::Lite::AUTO_ENCODE

If true, automatically choose the encoding from the
content type. Default is true.

$MIME::Lite::AUTO_VERIFY

If true, check paths to attachments right before
printing, raising an exception if any path is unread
able. Default is true.

$MIME::Lite::PARANOID

If true, we won't attempt to use MIME::Base64,
MIME::QuotedPrint, or MIME::Types, even if they're
available. Default is false. Please consider keeping
it false, and trusting these other packages to do the
right thing.

Construction

new [PARAMHASH]

Class method, constructor. Create a new message object.

If any arguments are given, they are passed into
"build()"; otherwise, just the empty object is cre
ated.

attach PART
attach PARAMHASH...

Instance method. Add a new part to this message, and return the new part.

If you supply a single PART argument, it will be
regarded as a MIME::Lite object to be attached. Oth
erwise, this method assumes that you are giving in the
pairs of a PARAMHASH which will be sent into "new()"
to create the new part.

One of the possibly-quite-useful hacks thrown into
this is the "attach-to-singlepart" hack: if you
attempt to attach a part (let's call it "part 1") to a
message that doesn't have a content-type of "multi
part" or "message", the following happens:

· A new part (call it "part 0") is made.

· The MIME attributes and data (but not the other

headers) are cut from the "self" message, and
pasted into "part 0".

· The "self" is turned into a "multipart/mixed" mes

sage.

· The new "part 0" is added to the "self", and then

"part 1" is added.

One of the nice side-effects is that you can create a
text message and then add zero or more attachments to
it, much in the same way that a user agent like
Netscape allows you to do.

build [PARAMHASH]

Class/instance method, initializer. Create (or ini tialize) a MIME message object. Normally, you'll use
the following keys in PARAMHASH:

* Data, FH, or Path (either one of these, or

none if multipart)
* Type (e.g., "image/jpeg")
* From, To, and Subject (if this is the "top lev

el" of a message)

The PARAMHASH can contain the following keys:

(fieldname)

Any field you want placed in the message header,
taken from the standard list of header fields (you
don't need to worry about case):

Approved Encrypted Received

Sender
Bcc From References Sub

ject
Cc Keywords Reply-To To
Comments Message-ID Resent-* X-*
Content-* MIME-Version Return-Path
Date Organization

To give experienced users some veto power, these
fields will be set after the ones I set... so be
careful: don't set any MIME fields (like "Con tent-type") unless you know what you're doing!

To specify a fieldname that's not in the above
list, even one that's identical to an option
below, just give it with a trailing ":", like
"My-field:". When in doubt, that always signals a mail field (and it sort of looks like one too).

Data

Alternative to "Path" or "FH". The actual message data. This may be a scalar or a ref to an array
of strings; if the latter, the message consists of
a simple concatenation of all the strings in the
array.

Datestamp

Optional. If given true (or omitted), we force the creation of a "Date:" field stamped with the
current date/time if this is a top-level message.
You may want this if using send_by_smtp(). If you don't want this to be done, either provide your
own Date or explicitly set this to false.

Disposition

Optional. The content disposition, "inline" or "attachment". The default is "inline".

Encoding

Optional. The content transfer encoding that should be used to encode your data:

Use encoding: | If your message contains:
-----------------------------------------------------------7bit | Only 7-bit text, all lines

<1000 characters
8bit | 8-bit text, all lines <1000

characters
quoted-printable | 8-bit text or long lines

(more reliable than "8bit")
base64 | Largely non-textual data: a

GIF, a tar file, etc.

The default is taken from the Type; generally it
is "binary" (no encoding) for text/*, message/*,
and multipart/*, and "base64" for everything else.
A value of "binary" is generally not suitable for
sending anything but ASCII text files with lines
under 1000 characters, so consider using one of
the other values instead.

In the case of "7bit"/"8bit", long lines are auto
matically chopped to legal length; in the case of
"7bit", all 8-bit characters are automatically
removed. This may not be what you want, so pick your encoding well! For more info, see "A MIME
PRIMER".

FH Alternative to "Data" or "Path". Filehandle con

taining the data, opened for reading. See "Read
Now" also.

Filename

Optional. The name of the attachment. You can use this to supply a recommended filename for the
end-user who is saving the attachment to disk.
You only need this if the filename at the end of
the "Path" is inadequate, or if you're using
"Data" instead of "Path". You should not put path
information in here (e.g., no "/" or "
characters should be used).

Id Optional. Same as setting "content-id".

Length

Optional. Set the content length explicitly. Normally, this header is automatically computed,
but only under certain circumstances (see "Limita
tions").

Path

Alternative to "Data" or "FH". Path to a file containing the data... actually, it can be any
open()able expression. If it looks like a path,
the last element will automatically be treated as
the filename. See "ReadNow" also.

ReadNow

Optional, for use with "Path". If true, will open the path and slurp the contents into core now.
This is useful if the Path points to a command and
you don't want to run the command over and over if
outputting the message several times. Fatal
exception raised if the open fails.

Top Optional. If defined, indicates whether or not

this is a "top-level" MIME message. The parts of
a multipart message are not top-level. Default is
true.

Type

Optional. The MIME content type, or one of these special values (case-sensitive):

"TEXT" means "text/plain"
"BINARY" means "application/octet-stream"
"AUTO" means attempt to guess from the

filename, falling back

to 'application/octet-stream'. This

is good if you have
MIME::Types on your system and you

have no idea what
file might be used for the attach

ment.

The default is "TEXT", but it will be "AUTO" if
you set $AUTO_CONTENT_TYPE to true (sorry, but you
have to enable it explicitly, since we don't want
to break code which depends on the old behavior).

A picture being worth 1000 words (which is of course
2000 bytes, so it's probably more of an "icon" than a
"picture", but I digress...), here are some examples:

$msg = MIME::Lite->build(

From => 'yelling@inter.com',
To => 'stocking@fish.net',
Subject => "Hi there!",
Type => 'TEXT',
Encoding => '7bit',
Data => "Just a quick note to say

hi!");

$msg = MIME::Lite->build(

From => 'dorothy@emerald-city.oz',
To => 'gesundheit@edu.edu.edu',
Subject => "A gif for U"
Type => 'image/gif',
Path => "/home/httpd/logo.gif");

$msg = MIME::Lite->build(

From => 'laughing@all.of.us',
To => 'scarlett@fiddle.dee.de',
Subject => "A gzipp'ed tar file",
Type => 'x-gzip',
Path => "gzip < /usr/inc/some

file.tar |",
ReadNow => 1,
Filename => "somefile.tgz");

To show you what's really going on, that last example
could also have been written:

$msg = new MIME::Lite;
$msg->build(Type => 'x-gzip',

Path => "gzip < /usr/inc/some

file.tar |",
ReadNow => 1,
Filename => "somefile.tgz");

$msg->add(From => "laughing@all.of.us");
$msg->add(To => "scarlett@fiddle.dee.de");
$msg->add(Subject => "A gzipp'ed tar file");

Setting/getting headers and attributes

add TAG,VALUE

Instance method. Add field TAG with the given VALUE to the end of the header. The TAG will be converted
to all-lowercase, and the VALUE will be made "safe"
(returns will be given a trailing space).

Beware: any MIME fields you "add" will override any
MIME attributes I have when it comes time to output
those fields. Normally, you will use this method to
add non-MIME fields:

$msg->add("Subject" => "Hi there!");

Giving VALUE as an arrayref will cause all those val
ues to be added. This is only useful for special mul
tiple-valued fields like "Received":

$msg->add("Received" => ["here", "there", "every

where"]

Giving VALUE as the empty string adds an invisible
placeholder to the header, which can be used to sup
press the output of the "Content-*" fields or the spe
cial "MIME-Version" field. When suppressing fields,
you should use replace() instead of add():

$msg->replace("Content-disposition" => "");

Note: add() is probably going to be more efficient than "replace()", so you're better off using it for
most applications if you are certain that you don't
need to delete() the field first.

Note: the name comes from Mail::Header.

attr ATTR,[VALUE]

Instance method. Set MIME attribute ATTR to the string VALUE. ATTR is converted to all-lowercase.
This method is normally used to set/get MIME
attributes:

$msg->attr("content-type" => "text/html");
$msg->attr("content-type.charset" => "US-ASCII");
$msg->attr("content-type.name" => "home

page.html");

This would cause the final output to look something
like this:

Content-type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII;

name="homepage.html"

Note that the special empty sub-field tag indicates
the anonymous first sub-field.

Giving VALUE as undefined will cause the contents of
the named subfield to be deleted.

Supplying no VALUE argument just returns the
attribute's value:

$type = $msg->attr("content-type"); ### re

turns "text/html"
$name = $msg->attr("content-type.name"); ### re

turns "homepage.html"

delete TAG

Instance method. Delete field TAG with the given VALUE to the end of the header. The TAG will be con
verted to all-lowercase.

$msg->delete("Subject");

Note: the name comes from Mail::Header.

field_order FIELD,...FIELD

Class/instance method. Change the order in which header fields are output for this object:

$msg->field_order('from', 'to', 'content-type',

'subject');

When used as a class method, changes the default set
tings for all objects:

MIME::Lite->field_order('from', 'to', 'content

type', 'subject');

Case does not matter: all field names will be coerced
to lowercase. In either case, supply the empty array
to restore the default ordering.

fields

Instance method. Return the full header for the object, as a ref to an array of "[TAG, VALUE]" pairs,
where each TAG is all-lowercase. Note that any fields
the user has explicitly set will override the corre
sponding MIME fields that we would otherwise generate.
So, don't say...

$msg->set("Content-type" => "text/html;

charset=US-ASCII");

unless you want the above value to override the "Con
tent-type" MIME field that we would normally generate.

Note: I called this "fields" because the header() method of Mail::Header returns something different,
but similar enough to be confusing.

You can change the order of the fields: see
"field_order". You really shouldn't need to do this,
but some people have to deal with broken mailers.

filename [FILENAME]

Instance method. Set the filename which this data will be reported as. This actually sets both "stan
dard" attributes.

With no argument, returns the filename as dictated by
the content-disposition.

get TAG,[INDEX]

Instance method. Get the contents of field TAG, which might have been set with set() or replace(). Returns the text of the field.

$ml->get('Subject', 0);

If the optional 0-based INDEX is given, then we return
the INDEX'th occurence of field TAG. Otherwise, we
look at the context: In a scalar context, only the
first (0th) occurence of the field is returned; in an
array context, all occurences are returned.

Warning: this should only be used with non-MIME
fields. Behavior with MIME fields is TBD, and will
raise an exception for now.

get_length

Instance method. Recompute the content length for the message if the process is trivial, setting the "con tent-length" attribute as a side-effect:

$msg->get_length;

Returns the length, or undefined if not set.

Note: the content length can be difficult to compute,
since it involves assembling the entire encoded body
and taking the length of it (which, in the case of
multipart messages, means freezing all the sub-parts,
etc.).

This method only sets the content length to a defined
value if the message is a singlepart with "binary"
encoding, and the body is available either in-core or
as a simple file. Otherwise, the content length is
set to the undefined value.

Since content-length is not a standard MIME field any
way (that's right, kids: it's not in the MIME RFCs,
it's an HTTP thing), this seems pretty fair.

parts

Instance method. Return the parts of this entity, and this entity only. Returns empty array if this entity
has no parts.

This is not recursive! Parts can have sub-parts; use
parts_DFS() to get everything.

parts_DFS

Instance method. Return the list of all MIME::Lite objects included in the entity, starting with the
entity itself, in depth-first-search order. If this
object has no parts, it alone will be returned.

preamble [TEXT]

Instance method. Get/set the preamble string, assum ing that this object has subparts. Set it to undef
for the default string.

replace TAG,VALUE

Instance method. Delete all occurences of fields named TAG, and add a new field with the given VALUE.
TAG is converted to all-lowercase.

Beware the special MIME fields (MIME-version, Con
tent-*): if you "replace" a MIME field, the replace
ment text will override the actual MIME attributes
when it comes time to output that field. So normally
you use attr() to change MIME fields and
add()/replace() to change non-MIME fields:

$msg->replace("Subject" => "Hi there!");

Giving VALUE as the empty string will effectively pre_ vent that field from being output. This is the cor
rect way to suppress the special MIME fields:

$msg->replace("Content-disposition" => "");

Giving VALUE as undefined will just cause all explicit values for TAG to be deleted, without having any new
values added.

Note: the name of this method comes from
Mail::Header.

scrub

Instance method. This is Alpha code. If you use it, please let me know how it goes. Recursively goes through the "parts" tree of this message and tries to
find MIME attributes that can be removed. With an
array argument, removes exactly those attributes;
e.g.:

$msg->scrub(['content-disposition', 'content

length']);

Is the same as recursively doing:

$msg->replace('Content-disposition' => '');
$msg->replace('Content-length' => '');

Setting/getting message data

binmode [OVERRIDE]

Instance method. With no argument, returns whether or not it thinks that the data (as given by the "Path"
argument of "build()") should be read using binmode() (for example, when "read_now()" is invoked).

The default behavior is that any content type other
than "text/*" or "message/*" is binmode'd; this should
in general work fine.

With a defined argument, this method sets an explicit
"override" value. An undefined argument unsets the
override. The new current value is returned.

data [DATA]

Instance method. Get/set the literal DATA of the mes sage. The DATA may be either a scalar, or a reference
to an array of scalars (which will simply be joined).

Warning: setting the data causes the "content-length" attribute to be recomputed (possibly to nothing).

fh [FILEHANDLE]

Instance method. Get/set the FILEHANDLE which con tains the message data.

Takes a filehandle as an input and stores it in the
object. This routine is similar to path(); one impor
tant difference is that no attempt is made to set the
content length.

path [PATH]

Instance method. Get/set the PATH to the message data.

Warning: setting the path recomputes any existing
"content-length" field, and re-sets the "filename" (to
the last element of the path if it looks like a simple
path, and to nothing if not).

resetfh [FILEHANDLE]

Instance method. Set the current position of the filehandle back to the beginning. Only applies if you
used "FH" in build() or attach() for this message.

Returns false if unable to reset the filehandle (since
not all filehandles are seekable).

read_now

Instance method. Forces data from the path/filehandle (as specified by "build()") to be read into core imme
diately, just as though you had given it literally
with the "Data" keyword.

Note that the in-core data will always be used if
available.

Be aware that everything is slurped into a giant
scalar: you may not want to use this if sending tar
files! The benefit of not reading in the data is that
very large files can be handled by this module if left
on disk until the message is output via "print()" or
"print_body()".

sign PARAMHASH

Instance method. Sign the message. This forces the message to be read into core, after which the signa
ture is appended to it.

Data

As in "build()": the literal signature data. Can
be either a scalar or a ref to an array of
scalars.

Path

As in "build()": the path to the file.

If no arguments are given, the default is:

Path => "$ENV{HOME}/.signature"

The content-length is recomputed.

verify_data

Instance method. Verify that all "paths" to attached data exist, recursively. It might be a good idea for
you to do this before a print(), to prevent accidental partial output if a file might be missing. Raises
exception if any path is not readable.

Output

print [OUTHANDLE]

Instance method. Print the message to the given out put handle, or to the currently-selected filehandle if
none was given.

All OUTHANDLE has to be is a filehandle (possibly a
glob ref), or any object that responds to a print()
message.

print_body [OUTHANDLE]

Instance method. Print the body of a message to the given output handle, or to the currently-selected
filehandle if none was given.

All OUTHANDLE has to be is a filehandle (possibly a
glob ref), or any object that responds to a print()
message.

Fatal exception raised if unable to open any of the input files, or if a part contains no data, or if an
unsupported encoding is encountered.

print_header [OUTHANDLE]

Instance method. Print the header of the message to the given output handle, or to the currently-selected
filehandle if none was given.

All OUTHANDLE has to be is a filehandle (possibly a
glob ref), or any object that responds to a print()
message.

as_string

Instance method. Return the entire message as a string, with a header and an encoded body.

body_as_string

Instance method. Return the encoded body as a string. This is the portion after the header and the blank
line.

Note: actually prepares the body by "printing" to a
scalar. Proof that you can hand the "print*()" meth
ods any blessed object that responds to a "print()"
message.

header_as_string

Instance method. Return the header as a string.

Sending

send
send HOW, HOWARGS...

Class/instance method. This is the principal method for sending mail, and for configuring how mail will be
sent.

As a class method with a HOW argument and optional HOWARGS, it sets the default sending mechanism that
the no-argument instance method will use. The HOW is
a facility name (see below), and the HOWARGS is inter preted by the facilty. The class method returns the
previous HOW and HOWARGS as an array.

MIME::Lite->send('sendmail',
...
$msg = MIME::Lite->new(...);
$msg->send;

As an instance method with arguments (a HOW argument and optional HOWARGS), sends the message in the
requested manner; e.g.:

$msg->send('sendmail',

As an instance method with no arguments, sends the message by the default mechanism set up by the class
method. Returns whatever the mail-handling routine
returns: this should be true on success, false/excep
tion on error:

$msg = MIME::Lite->new(From=>...);
$msg->send || die "you DON'T have mail!";

On Unix systems (at least), the default setting is
equivalent to:

MIME::Lite->send("sendmail", "/usr/lib/sendmail -t

-oi -oem");

There are three facilities:

"sendmail", ARGS...

Send a message by piping it into the "sendmail"
command. Uses the send_by_sendmail() method, giv ing it the ARGS. This usage implements (and dep
recates) the "sendmail()" method.

"smtp", [HOSTNAME]

Send a message by SMTP, using optional HOSTNAME as
SMTP-sending host. Uses the send_by_smtp() method.

"sub", SUBREF, ARGS...

Sends a message MSG by invoking the subroutine
SUBREF of your choosing, with MSG as the first
argument, and ARGS following.

For example: let's say you're on an OS which lacks the usual Unix "sendmail" facility, but you've installed
something a lot like it, and you need to configure
your Perl script to use this "sendmail.exe" program.
Do this following in your script's setup:

MIME::Lite->send('sendmail',

Then, whenever you need to send a message $msg, just
say:

$msg->send;

That's it. Now, if you ever move your script to a
Unix box, all you need to do is change that line in
the setup and you're done. All of your $msg->send
invocations will work as expected.

send_by_sendmail SENDMAILCMD
send_by_sendmail PARAM=>VALUE, ...

Instance method. Send message via an external "send mail" program (this will probably only work out-ofthe-box on Unix systems).

Returns true on success, false or exception on error.

You can specify the program and all its arguments by
giving a single string, SENDMAILCMD. Nothing fancy is
done; the message is simply piped in.

However, if your needs are a little more advanced, you
can specify zero or more of the following PARAM/VALUE
pairs; a Unix-style, taint-safe "sendmail" command
will be constructed for you:

Sendmail

Full path to the program to use. Default is
"/usr/lib/sendmail".

BaseArgs

Ref to the basic array of arguments we start with.
Default is "["-t", "-oi", "-oem"]".

SetSender

Unless this is explicitly given as false, we attempt to automatically set the "-f" argument to
the first address that can be extracted from the
"From:" field of the message (if there is one).

What is the -f, and why do we use it? Suppose we did not use "-f", and you gave an explicit "From:"
field in your message: in this case, the sendmail
"envelope" would indicate the real user your pro
cess was running under, as a way of preventing
mail forgery. Using the "-f" switch causes the
sender to be set in the envelope as well.

So when would I NOT want to use it? If sendmail doesn't regard you as a "trusted" user, it will
permit the "-f" but also add an "X-Authentica
tion-Warning" header to the message to indicate a
forged envelope. To avoid this, you can either
(1) have SetSender be false, or (2) make yourself
a trusted user by adding a "T" configuration

command to your sendmail.cf file
(e.g.: "Teryq" if the script is running as

user "eryq").

FromSender

If defined, this is identical to setting SetSender
to true, except that instead of looking at the
"From:" field we use the address given by this
option. Thus:

FromSender => 'me@myhost.com'

send_by_smtp ARGS...

Instance method. Send message via SMTP, using Net::SMTP. The optional ARGS are sent into
Net::SMTP::new(): usually, these are

MAILHOST, OPTION=>VALUE, ...

Note that the list of recipients is taken from the
"To", "Cc" and "Bcc" fields.

Returns true on success, false or exception on error.

sendmail COMMAND...

Class method, DEPRECATED. Declare the sender to be "sendmail", and set up the "sendmail" command. You
should use send() instead.

Miscellaneous

quiet ONOFF

Class method. Suppress/unsuppress all warnings coming from this module.

MIME::Lite->quiet(1); ### I know what I'm

doing

I recommend that you include that comment as well.
And while you type it, say it out loud: if it doesn't
feel right, then maybe you should reconsider the whole
line. ";-)"

NOTES

How do I prevent "Content" headers from showing up in my mail reader?

Apparently, some people are using mail readers which dis
play the MIME headers like "Content-disposition", and they
want MIME::Lite not to generate them "because they look
ugly".

Sigh.

Y'know, kids, those headers aren't just there for cosmetic
purposes. They help ensure that the message is understood correctly by mail readers. But okay, you asked for it,
you got it... here's how you can suppress the standard
MIME headers. Before you send the message, do this:

$msg->scrub;

You can scrub() any part of a multipart message indepen
dently; just be aware that it works recursively. Before
you scrub, note the rules that I follow:

Content-type

You can safely scrub the "content-type" attribute if,
and only if, the part is of type "text/plain" with
charset "us-ascii".

Content-transfer-encoding

You can safely scrub the "content-transfer-encoding"
attribute if, and only if, the part uses "7bit",
"8bit", or "binary" encoding. You are far better off
doing this if your lines are under 1000 characters.
Generally, that means you can scrub it for plain text,
and you can not scrub this for images, etc.

Content-disposition

You can safely scrub the "content-disposition"
attribute if you trust the mail reader to do the right
thing when it decides whether to show an attachment
inline or as a link. Be aware that scrubbing both the
content-disposition and the content-type means that
there is no way to "recommend" a filename for the
attachment!

Note: there are reports of brain-dead MUAs out there
that do the wrong thing if you provide the con
tent-disposition. If your attachments keep showing up
inline or vice-versa, try scrubbing this attribute.

Content-length

You can always scrub "content-length" safely.

How do I give my attachment a [different] recommended filename?

By using the Filename option (which is different from
Path!):

$msg->attach(Type => "image/gif",

Path => "/here/is/the/real/file.GIF",
Filename => "logo.gif");

You should not put path information in the Filename.

Benign limitations

This is "lite", after all...

· There's no parsing. Get MIME-tools if you need to

parse MIME messages.

· MIME::Lite messages are currently not interchangeable

with either Mail::Internet or MIME::Entity objects.
This is a completely separate module.

· A content-length field is only inserted if the encod

ing is binary, the message is a singlepart, and all
the document data is available at "build()" time by
virtue of residing in a simple path, or in-core.
Since content-length is not a standard MIME field any
way (that's right, kids: it's not in the MIME RFCs,
it's an HTTP thing), this seems pretty fair.

· MIME::Lite alone cannot help you lose weight. You

must supplement your use of MIME::Lite with a healthy
diet and exercise.

Cheap and easy mailing

I thought putting in a default "sendmail" invocation
wasn't too bad an idea, since a lot of Perlers are on UNIX
systems. The out-of-the-box configuration is:

MIME::Lite->send('sendmail', "/usr/lib/sendmail -t

-oi -oem");

By the way, these arguments to sendmail are:

-t Scan message for To:, Cc:, Bcc:, etc.

-oi Do NOT treat a single "." on a line as a mes

sage terminator.

As in, "-oi vey, it truncated my message...

why?!"

-oem On error, mail back the message (I assume to

the

appropriate address, given in the header).
When mail returns, circle is complete. Jai

Guru Deva -oem.

Note that these are the same arguments you get if you con
figure to use the smarter, taint-safe mailing:

MIME::Lite->send('sendmail');

If you get "X-Authentication-Warning" headers from this,
you can forgo diddling with the envelope by instead speci
fying:

MIME::Lite->send('sendmail', SetSender=>0);

And, if you're not on a Unix system, or if you'd just
rather send mail some other way, there's always:

MIME::Lite->send('smtp', "smtp.myisp.net");

Or you can set up your own subroutine to call. In any
case, check out the send() method.

WARNINGS

Good-vs-bad email addresses with send_by_smtp()

If using send_by_smtp(), be aware that you are forcing MIME::Lite to extract email addresses out of a possible
list provided in the "To:", "Cc:", and "Bcc:" fields.
This is tricky stuff, and as such only the following sorts
of addresses will work reliably:

username
full.name@some.host.com
"Name, Full" <full.name@some.host.com>

This last form is discouraged because SMTP must be able to
get at the name or name@domain portion.

Disclaimer: MIME::Lite was never intended to be a Mail User Agent, so please don't expect a full implementation
of RFC-822. Restrict yourself to the common forms of
Internet addresses described herein, and you should be
fine. If this is not feasible, then consider using
MIME::Lite to prepare your message only, and using
Net::SMTP explicitly to send your message.

Formatting of headers delayed until print()

This class treats a MIME header in the most abstract
sense, as being a collection of high-level attributes.
The actual RFC-822-style header fields are not constructed
until it's time to actually print the darn thing.

Encoding of data delayed until print()

When you specify message bodies (in build() or attach()) -- whether by FH, Data, or Path -- be warned that we don't attempt to open files, read filehandles, or encode the
data until print() is invoked.

In the past, this created some confusion for users of
sendmail who gave the wrong path to an attachment body,
since enough of the print() would succeed to get the ini tial part of the message out. Nowadays, $AUTO_VERIFY is
used to spot-check the Paths given before the mail facil
ity is employed. A whisker slower, but tons safer.

Note that if you give a message body via FH, and try to
print() a message twice, the second print() will not do the right thing unless you explicitly rewind the filehan
dle.

You can get past these difficulties by using the ReadNow option, provided that you have enough memory to handle
your messages.

MIME attributes are separate from header fields!

Important: the MIME attributes are stored and manipulated separately from the message header fields; when it comes
time to print the header out, any explicitly-given header fields override the ones that would be created from the MIME attributes. That means that this:

### DANGER ### DANGER ### DANGER ### DANGER ### DANGER

###
$msg->add("Content-type", "text/html; charset=US

ASCII");

will set the exact "Content-type" field in the header I
write, regardless of what the actual MIME attributes are.

This feature is for experienced users only, as an escape hatch in case the code that normally formats MIME header
fields isn't doing what you need. And, like any escape
hatch, it's got an alarm on it: MIME::Lite will warn you
if you attempt to "set()" or "replace()" any MIME header
field. Use "attr()" instead.

Beware of lines consisting of a single dot

Julian Haight noted that MIME::Lite allows you to compose
messages with lines in the body consisting of a single
".". This is true: it should be completely harmless so
long as "sendmail" is used with the -oi option (see "Cheap
and easy mailing").

However, I don't know if using Net::SMTP to transfer such
a message is equally safe. Feedback is welcomed.

My perspective: I don't want to magically diddle with a
user's message unless absolutely positively necessary.
Some users may want to send files with "." alone on a
line; my well-meaning tinkering could seriously harm them.

Infinite loops may mean tainted data!

Stefan Sautter noticed a bug in 2.106 where a m//gc match
was failing due to tainted data, leading to an infinite
loop inside MIME::Lite.

I am attempting to correct for this, but be advised that
my fix will silently untaint the data (given the context
in which the problem occurs, this should be benign: I've
labelled the source code with UNTAINT comments for the
curious).

So: don't depend on taint-checking to save you from out
putting tainted data in a message.

Don't tweak the global configuration

Global configuration variables are bad, and should go
away. Until they do, please follow the hints with each
setting on how not to change it.

A MIME PRIMER

Content types

The "Type" parameter of "build()" is a content type. This is the actual type of data you are sending. Generally
this is a string of the form "majortype/minortype".

Here are the major MIME types. A more-comprehensive list
ing may be found in RFC-2046.

application

Data which does not fit in any of the other cate
gories, particularly data to be processed by some type
of application program. "application/octet-stream",
"application/gzip", "application/postscript"...

audio

Audio data. "audio/basic"...

image

Graphics data. "image/gif", "image/jpeg"...

message

A message, usually another mail or MIME message.
"message/rfc822"...

multipart

A message containing other messages. "multi
part/mixed", "multipart/alternative"...

text

Textual data, meant for humans to read. "text/plain",
"text/html"...

video

Video or video+audio data. "video/mpeg"...

Content transfer encodings

The "Encoding" parameter of "build()". This is how the
message body is packaged up for safe transit.

Here are the 5 major MIME encodings. A more-comprehensive
listing may be found in RFC-2045.

7bit

Basically, no real encoding is done. However, this
label guarantees that no 8-bit characters are present,
and that lines do not exceed 1000 characters in
length.

8bit

Basically, no real encoding is done. The message
might contain 8-bit characters, but this encoding
guarantees that lines do not exceed 1000 characters in
length.

binary

No encoding is done at all. Message might contain
8-bit characters, and lines might be longer than 1000
characters long.

The most liberal, and the least likely to get through
mail gateways. Use sparingly, or (better yet) not at
all.

base64

Like "uuencode", but very well-defined. This is how
you should send essentially binary information (tar
files, GIFs, JPEGs, etc.).

quoted-printable

Useful for encoding messages which are textual in
nature, yet which contain non-ASCII characters (e.g.,
Latin-1, Latin-2, or any other 8-bit alphabet).

VERSION

$Id: Lite.pm,v 2.117 2001/08/20 20:40:39 eryq Exp $

CHANGE LOG

Version 2.117 (2001/08/20)

The terms-of-use have been placed in the distribution
file "COPYING". Also, small documentation tweaks were
made.

Version 2.116 (2001/08/17)

Added long-overdue patch which makes the instance
method form of send() do the right thing when given
HOW... arguments. Thanks to Casey West for the patch.

Version 2.114 (2001/08/16)

New special 'AUTO' content type in new()/build() tells MIME::Lite to try and guess the type from file exten
sion. To make use of this, you'll want to install
MIME::Types. The "AUTO" setting can be made the default default (instead of "TEXT") if you set
"$AUTO_CONTENT_TYPE = 1, $PARANOID = 0". Thanks to Ville SkyttE<#228> for these patches.

File::Basename is used if it is available. Thanks to Ville SkyttE<#228> for this patch.

SMTP failures (in send_by_smtp) now add the
$smtp->message to the croak'ed exception, so if things
go wrong, you get a better idea of what and why.
Thanks to Thomas R. Wyant III for the patch.

Made a subtle change to "as_string" which supposedly
fixes a failed MIME data.t test with Perl 5.004_04 on
NT 4 sp6. The problem might only exist in this old
perl, but as the patch author says, not everyone has
climbed higher on the Perl ladder. Thanks to John Gotts for the patch.

Added "contrib" directory, with MailTool.pm. Thanks to Tom Wyant for this contribution.

Improved HTML documentation (notice the links to the
individual methods in the top menu).

Corrected some mis-docs.

Version 2.111 (2001/04/03)

Added long-overdue "parts()" and "parts_DFS()" meth
ods.

No instance method

For accessing the subparts?

That can't be right. D'OH!

Added long-overdue auto-verify logic to "print()"
method.

Added long-overdue "preamble()" method for get
ting/setting the preamble text. Thanks to Jim Daigle for inspiring this.

Version 2.108 (2001/03/30)

New "field_order()" allows you to set the header
order, both on a per-message basis, and package-wide.
Thanks to Thomas Stromberg for suggesting this.

Added code to try and divine "sendmail" path more
intelligently. Thanks to Slaven Rezic for the sugges_ tion.

Version 2.107 (2001/03/27)

Fixed serious bug where tainted data with quotedprintable encoding was causing infinite loops. The
"fix" untaints the data in question, which is not
optimal, but it's probably benign in this case.
Thanks to Stefan Sautter for tracking this nasty lit_ tle beast down. Thanks to Larry Geralds for a related patch.

"Doctor, O doctor:

it's painful when I do *this* --"

"Simple: don't *do* that."

Fixed bugs where a non-local $_ was being modified...
again! Will I never learn? Thanks to Maarten Koskamp for reporting this.

Dollar-underscore

can poison distant waters;

'local' must it be.

Fixed buglet in "add()" where all value references
were being treated as arrayrefs, instead of as possi
bly-self-stringifying object refs. Now you can send
in an object ref as the 2nd argument. Thanks to dLux for the bug report.

That ref is a string?

Operator overload

has ruined my day.

Added "Approved" as an acceptable header field for
"new()", as per RFC1036. Thanks to Thomax for the suggestion regarding MIME-tools.

Small improvements to docs to make different uses of
attach() and various arguments clearer. Thanks to Sven Rassman and Roland Walter for the suggestions.

Version 2.106 (2000/11/21)

Added Alpha version of scrub() to make it easy for
people to suppress the printing of unwanted MIME
attributes (like Content-length). Thanks to the many people who asked for this.

Headers with empty-strings for their values are no
longer printed. This seems sensible, and helps us
implement scrub().

Version 2.105 (2000/10/14)

The regression-test failure was identified, and it was
my fault. Apparently some of the -quoting in my
"autoloaded" code was making Perl 5.6 unhappy. For
this nesting-related idiocy, a nesting kaiku. Thanks
to Scott Schwartz for identifying the problem.

In a pattern, my

backslash-s dwells peacefully,

unambiguous -

but I embed it

in a double-quoted string

doubling the backslash -

interpolating

that same double-quoted string

in other patterns -

and, worlds within worlds,

I single-quote the function

to autoload it -

changing the meaning

of the backslash and the 's';

and Five-Point-Six growls.

Version 2.104 (2000/09/28)

Now attempts to load and use Mail::Address for parsing
email addresses before falling back to our own method. Thanks to numerous people for suggesting this.

Parsing addresses

is too damn hard. One last hope:

Let Graham Barr do it!

For the curious, the version of Mail::Address appears
as the "A" number in the X-Mailer:

X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 2.104 (A1.15; B2.09; Q2.03)

Added FromSender option to send_by_sendmail(). Thanks to Bill Moseley for suggesting this feature.

Version 2.101 (2000/06/06)

Major revision to print_body() and body_as_string() so that "body" really means "the part after the header",
which is what most people would want in this context.
This is not how it was used 1.x, where "body" only
meant "the body of a simple singlepart". Hopefully,
this change will solve many problems and create very
few ones.

Added support for attaching a part to a "mes
sage/rfc822", treating the "message" type as a multi
part-like container.

Now takes care not to include "Bcc:" in header when
using send_by_smtp, as a safety precaution against
qmail's behavior. Thanks to Tatsuhiko Miyagawa for identifying this problem.

Improved efficiency of many stringifying operations by
using string-arrays which are joined, instead of doing
multiple appends to a scalar.

Cleaned up the "examples" directory.

Version 1.147 (2000/06/02)

Fixed buglet where lack of Cc:/Bcc: was causing
extract_addrs to emit "undefined variable" warnings.
Also, lack of a "To:" field now causes a croak.
Thanks to David Mitchell for the bug report and sug_ gested patch.

Version 1.146 (2000/05/18)

Fixed bug in parsing of addresses; please read the
WARNINGS section which describes recommended address
formats for "To:", "Cc:", etc. Also added automatic
inclusion of a UT "Date:" at top level unless explic
itly told not to. Thanks to Andy Jacobs for the bug report and the suggestion.

Version 1.145 (2000/05/06)

Fixed bug in encode_7bit(): a lingering "/e" modifier was removed. Thanks to Michael A. Chase for the patch.

Version 1.142 (2000/05/02)

Added new, taint-safe invocation of "sendmail", one
which also sets up the "-f" option. Unfortunately, I
couldn't make this automatic: the change could have
broken a lot of code out there which used
send_by_sendmail() with unusual "sendmail" variants. So you'll have to configure "send" to use the new
mechanism:

MIME::Lite->send('sendmail'); ### no args!

Thanks to Jeremy Howard for suggesting these features.

Version 1.140 (2000/04/27)

Fixed bug in support for "To", "Cc", and "Bcc" in
send_by_smtp(): multiple (comma-separated) addresses should now work fine. We try real hard to extract
addresses from the flat text strings. Thanks to John Mason for motivating this change.

Added automatic verification that attached data files
exist, done immediately before the "send" action is
invoked. To turn this off, set $MIME::Lite::AUTO_VER
IFY to false.

Version 1.137 (2000/03/22)

Added support for "Cc" and "Bcc" in send_by_smtp(). To turn this off, set $MIME::Lite::AUTO_CC to false.
Thanks to Lucas Maneos for the patch, and tons of oth_ ers for the suggestion.

Chooses a better default content-transfer-encoding if
the content-type is "image/*", "audio/*", etc. To
turn this off, set $MIME::Lite::AUTO_ENCODE to false.
Thanks to many folks for the suggestion.

Fixed bug in QP-encoding where a non-local $_ was
being modified. Thanks to Jochen Stenzel for finding this very obscure bug!

Removed references to $`, $', and $& (bad variables
which slow things down).

Added an example of how to send HTML files with
enclosed in-line images, per popular demand.

Version 1.133 (1999/04/17)

Fixed bug in "Data" handling: arrayrefs were not being
handled properly.

Version 1.130 (1998/12/14)

Added much larger and more-flexible send() facility.
Thanks to Andrew McRae (and Optimation New Zealand Ltd) for the Net::SMTP interface. Additional thanks to the many folks who requested this feature.

Added get() method for extracting basic attributes.

New... "t" tests!

Version 1.124 (1998/11/13)

Folded in filehandle (FH) support in build/attach.
Thanks to Miko O'Sullivan for the code.

Version 1.122 (1998/01/19)

MIME::Base64 and MIME::QuotedPrint are used if avail
able.

The 7bit encoding no longer does "escapes"; it merely
strips 8-bit characters.

Version 1.121 (1997/04/08)

Filename attribute is now no longer ignored by
build(). Thanks to Ian Smith for finding and patching this bug.

Version 1.120 (1997/03/29)

Efficiency hack to speed up MIME::Lite::IO_Scalar.
Thanks to David Aspinwall for the patch.

Version 1.116 (1997/03/19)

Small bug in our private copy of encode_base64() was patched. Thanks to Andreas Koenig for pointing this out.

New, prettier way of specifying mail message headers
in "build()".

New quiet method to turn off warnings.

Changed "stringify" methods to more-standard
"as_string" methods.

Version 1.112 (1997/03/06)

Added "read_now()", and "binmode()" method for our
non-Unix-using brethren: file data is now read using
binmode() if appropriate. Thanks to Xiangzhou Wang for pointing out this bug.

Version 1.110 (1997/03/06)

Fixed bug in opening the data filehandle.

Version 1.102 (1997/03/01)

Initial release.

Version 1.101 (1997/03/01)

Baseline code. Originally created: 11 December 1996.
Ho ho ho.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Copyright (c) 1997 by Eryq. Copyright (c) 1998 by ZeeGee
Software Inc. All rights reserved. This program is free
software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.

This software comes with NO WARRANTY of any kind. See the COPYING file in the distribution for details.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

For some reason, the US FDA says that this is now required
by law on any products that bear the name "Lite"...

MIME::Lite
-----------------------------------------------------------Serving size: | 1 module
Servings per container: | 1
Calories: | 0
Fat: | 0g

Saturated Fat: | 0g

Warning: for consumption by hardware only! May produce
indigestion in humans if taken internally.

AUTHOR

Eryq (eryq@zeegee.com). President, ZeeGee Software Inc. (http://www.zeegee.com).

Go to http://www.zeegee.com for the latest downloads and on-line documentation for this module. Enjoy.

perl v5.8.0 2001-08-20 MIME::Lite(3)