Shell Programming and Scripting

I currently have an expect script that issues the 'mail' command and sends an 'x' when it receives the & prompt from mail to quit.

The expect script is able to do

Code:

stty rows 100 columns 200 < $spawn_out(slave,name)

to set up the number of columns and rows.

I would like to get rid of the expect script and replace it with a simple shell script to do something like:

Code:

mail < x.txt > mailList.txt

Where x.txt simply has an x in it that will end mail when it looks for input.

However, the list of mail messages is truncated because of the number of rows and columns or LINES and COLUMNS.

I've tried doing

Code:

stty rows 100 columns 200

before issuing the mail command in the console but it appeared to have no effect. I also tried in the bash script but that printed an error as expected since stty can't be issued in scripts from a cronjob (no term). I've also tried exporting LINES and COLUMNS environment variables but it did not help.

I'm sure there is an easy work around but I can't figure this out.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
-Jesse