Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi

Is there any way to use UNIX and Perl to automate sending e-mail. I got a dynamic changing file that send out to people in my mailing list and want to experinment to see if Perl and UNIX can send it out for me when the content is change. I found a Perl source code but dont really know how to use it can any one help
CODE for perl:
%mailcfg = (
# List of SMTP servers:
'smtp' => [ qw( localhost ) ],
#'smtp' => [ qw( mail.mydomain.com ) ], # example

'from' => '', # default sender e-mail, used when no From header in mail

'mime' => 1, # use MIME encoding by default

'retries' => 1, # number of retries on smtp connect failure
'delay' => 1, # delay in seconds between retries

'tz' => '', # only to override automatic detection
'port' => 25, # change it if you always use a non-standard port
'debug' => 0 # prints stuff to STDERR
);
require Exporter;
use strict;
use vars qw(
$VERSION
@ISA
@EXPORT
@EXPORT_OK
%mailcfg
$default_smtp_server
$default_smtp_port
$default_sender
$TZ
$use_MIME
$address_rx
$debug
$log
$error
$retry_delay
$connect_retries
);
use Socket;
use Time::Local; # for automatic time zone detection

eval("use MIME::QuotedPrint");
$mailcfg{'mime'} &&= (!$@);

@ISA = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw(&sendmail);
@EXPORT_OK = qw(
%mailcfg
time_to_date
$default_smtp_server
$default_smtp_port
$default_sender
$TZ
$address_rx
$debug
$log
$error
);
my $word_rx = '[\x21\x23-\x27\x2A-\x2B\x2D\w\x3D\x3F]+';
my $user_rx = $word_rx
.'(?:\.' . $word_rx . ')*' ;
my $dom_rx = '\w[-\w]*(?:\.\w[-\w]*)*'; # less valid chars in domain names
my $ip_rx = '\[\d{1,3}(?:\.\d{1,3}){3}\]';

$address_rx = '((' . $user_rx . ')\@(' . $dom_rx . '|' . $ip_rx . '))';
; # v. 0.6

sub time_to_date {

my $time = $_[0] || time(); # default to now if no argument

my @months = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec);
my @wdays = qw(Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat);

my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst)
= localtime($time);

$TZ ||= $mailcfg{'tz'};

if ( $TZ eq "" ) {
# offset in hours
my $offset = sprintf "%.1f", (timegm(localtime) - time) / 3600;
my $minutes = sprintf "%02d", ( $offset - int($offset) ) * 60;
$TZ = sprintf("%+03d", int($offset)) . $minutes;
}
return join(" ",
($wdays[$wday] . ','),
$mday,
$months[$mon],
$year+1900,
sprintf("%02d", $hour) . ":" . sprintf("%02d", $min),
$TZ
);
}
sub sendmail {

$error = '';
$log = "Mail::Sendmail v. $VERSION - " . scalar(localtime()) . "\n";

local $_;
local $/ = "\015\012";

my (%mail, $k,
$smtp, $server, $port, $connected, $localhost,
$message, $fromaddr, $recip, @recipients, $to, $header,
);

sub fail {
# things to do before returning a sendmail failure
print STDERR @_ if $^W;
$error .= join(" ", @_) . "\n";
close S;
return 0;
}

foreach $k (keys %mailcfg) {
if ($k =~ /[A-Z]/) {
$mailcfg{lc($k)} = $mailcfg{$k};
}
}

...
while (@_) {
# arrange keys case
$k = ucfirst lc(shift @_);

if (!$k and $^W) {
warn "Received false mail hash key: \'$k\'. Did you forget to put it in quotes?\n";
}

$k =~ s/\s*:\s*$//o; # kill colon (and possible spaces) at end, we add it later.
$mail{$k} = shift @_;
}

$smtp = $mail{'Smtp'} || $mail{'Server'} || $default_smtp_server;
unshift @{$mailcfg{'smtp'}}, $smtp if ($smtp and $mailcfg{'smtp'}->[0] ne $smtp);

delete $mail{'Smtp'}; delete $mail{'Server'};

$mailcfg{'port'} = $mail{'Port'} || $default_smtp_port || $mailcfg{'port'} || 25;
delete $mail{'Port'};

$mailcfg{'retries'} = $connect_retries if defined($connect_retries);
$mailcfg{'delay'} = $retry_delay if defined($retry_delay);

{
local $^W = 0;
$message = join("", $mail{'Message'}, $mail{'Body'}, $mail{'Text'});
}

delete $mail{'Message'}; delete $mail{'Body'}; delete $mail{'Text'};


$fromaddr = $mail{'From'} || $default_sender || $mailcfg{'from'};
unless ($fromaddr =~ /$address_rx/) {
return fail("Bad or missing From address: \'$fromaddr\'");
}
$fromaddr = $1;

$mail{Date} ||= time_to_date() ;
$log .= "Date: $mail{Date}\n";


$message =~ s/^\./\.\./gom; # handle . as first character
$message =~ s/\r\n/\n/go; # normalize line endings, step 1 of 2 (next step after MIME encoding)

$mail{'Mime-version'} ||= '1.0';
$mail{'Content-type'} ||= 'text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"';

unless ( $mail{'Content-transfer-encoding'}
|| $mail{'Content-type'} =~ /multipart/io )
{
if ($mailcfg{'mime'}) {
$mail{'Content-transfer-encoding'} = 'quoted-printable';
$message = encode_qp($message);
}
else {
$mail{'Content-transfer-encoding'} = '8bit';
if ($message =~ /[\x80-\xFF]/o) {
$error .= "MIME::QuotedPrint not present!\nSending 8bit characters, hoping it will come across OK.\n";
warn "MIME::QuotedPrint not present!\n",
"Sending 8bit characters, hoping it will come across OK.\n"
if $^W;
}
}
}

$message =~ s/\n/\015\012/go; # normalize line endings, step 2.

# Get recipients
{ # don't warn for undefined values below
local $^W = 0;
$recip = join(", ", $mail{To}, $mail{Cc}, $mail{Bcc});
}

delete $mail{'Bcc'};

@recipients = ();
while ($recip =~ /$address_rx/go) {
push @recipients, $1;
}
unless (@recipients) {
return fail("No recipient!")
}

$localhost = (gethostbyname('localhost'))[0] || 'localhost';

foreach $server ( @{$mailcfg{'smtp'}} ) {
# open socket needs to be inside this foreach loop on Linux,
# otherwise all servers fail if 1st one fails !??! why?
unless ( socket S, AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, (getprotobyname 'tcp')[2] ) {
return fail("socket failed ($!)")
}

print "- trying $server\n" if $mailcfg{'debug'} > 1;

$server =~ s/\s+//go; # remove spaces just in case of a typo
# extract port if server name like "mail.domain.com:2525"
($server =~ s/.+)$//o) ? $port = $1 : $port = $mailcfg{'port'};

The code is too long won't fit on one thread here is the rest of the code:

$smtp = $server; # save $server for use outside foreach loop

my $smtpaddr = inet_aton $server;
unless ($smtpaddr) {
$error .= "$server not found\n";
next; # next server
}

my $retried = 0; # reset retries for each server
while ( ( not $connected = connect S, pack_sockaddr_in($port, $smtpaddr) )
and ( $retried < $mailcfg{'retries'} )
) {
$retried++;
$error .= "connect to $server failed ($!)\n";
print "- connect to $server failed ($!)\n" if $mailcfg{'debug'} > 1;
print "retrying in $mailcfg{'delay'} seconds...\n";
sleep $mailcfg{'delay'};
}

if ( $connected ) {
print "- connected to $server\n" if $mailcfg{'debug'} > 3;
last;
}
else {
$error .= "connect to $server failed\n";
print "- connect to $server failed, next server...\n" if $mailcfg{'debug'} > 1;
next; # next server
}
}

unless ( $connected ) {
return fail("connect to $smtp failed ($!) no (more) retries!")
};

{
local $^W = 0; # don't warn on undefined variables
# Add info to log variable
$log .= "Server: $smtp Port: $port\n"
. "From: $fromaddr\n"
. "Subject: $mail{Subject}\n"
. "To: ";
}

my($oldfh) = select(S); $| = 1; select($oldfh);

chomp($_ = <S>);
if (/^[45]/ or !$_) {
return fail("Connection error from $smtp on port $port ($_)")
}

print S "HELO $localhost\015\012";
chomp($_ = <S>);
if (/^[45]/ or !$_) {
return fail("HELO error ($_)")
}

print S "mail from: <$fromaddr>\015\012";
chomp($_ = <S>);
if (/^[45]/ or !$_) {
return fail("mail From: error ($_)")
}

foreach $to (@recipients) {
if ($debug) { print STDERR "sending to: <$to>\n"; }
print S "rcpt to: <$to>\015\012";
chomp($_ = <S>);
if (/^[45]/ or !$_) {
$log .= "!Failed: $to\n ";
return fail("Error sending to <$to> ($_)\n");
}
else {
$log .= "$to\n ";
}
}

print S "data\015\012";
chomp($_ = <S>);
if (/^[45]/ or !$_) {
return fail("Cannot send data ($_)");
}

foreach $header (keys %mail) {
$mail{$header} =~ s/\s+$//o; # kill possible trailing garbage
print S "$header: ", $mail{$header}, "\015\012";
};


print S "\015\012",
$message,
"\015\012.\015\012";

chomp($_ = <S>);
if (/^[45]/ or !$_) {
return fail("message transmission failed ($_)");
}

print S "quit\015\012";
$_ = <S>;
close S;

return 1;
}

Can anyone also tell me what is a perl module and how to use it, the site i got the code from keep saying it is a module and need to download it, can unix do the same thing without using perl?

I don't know much about PERL, but I sincerely hope this is not about to be used for "bulk advertising", or SPAM...

NO!!! This is not for spam, it is a list of games i got that send out to all my friends! I just kept forget to send it all the time so i though it be great if it automatically send out when it update!

Perhaps write a shell script that runs from cron?
I would do something like this:
Put the file size (or better yet, the md5sum) in a file somewhere
Each time the shell script runs (say twice a day from cron), it checks to make sure the list is the same. If it's the same, the script exits. If it's different, it calls the perl script, then updates it's comparison file...

Should be a fun little project!