Problems using Unix mail command (2)


 
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# 1  
Old 12-05-2011
Problems using Unix mail command (2)

I recently generated myself the following error when attempting to use the Unix mail command:

The flags you gave make no sense since you're not sending mail.

There is a recent thread about this issue here in unix.com (with a title very much like this thread's title), but it was closed without explaining the reason for this error message, or at least not explaining the reason why I got this error, so I'm posting this message.

It turned out that I was calling the mail command and not giving it a destination address, even though I thought that I was:
Code:
cat exception_rpt |  mail -s "$BNK Exception Report `date`" $addr

I was reading email addresses out of a file and into the "$addr" variable, and executing the above command, but my file had blank lines in it! When I ran my shell script in debug mode (#!/bin/sh -x) I saw that each blank line resulted in an "extra" call to the mail command, with "$addr" set to a null string.

I suspect that this is the most common way to get the error:

"The flags you gave make no sense since you're not sending mail."

Last edited by Franklin52; 12-07-2011 at 05:52 AM.. Reason: Please use code tags for code and data samples, thank you
# 2  
Old 12-06-2011
What Operating System and version were you using?

Though you have clearly fixed the problem, there is much different behaviour of "mail" and "mailx".
# 3  
Old 12-06-2011
Hi methyl,

Looks like AIX:

lip:/home/lc $ uname -a
AIX lip 1 6 00CF4E2A4C00
lip:/home/lc $ oslevel
6.1.0.0
lip:/home/lc $

I'm very new to AIX, I'm more of a Solaris and Linux person. I never used the 'mail' and 'mailx' programs much. On this system they have the same man page!

Yours,

Clovis
This User Gave Thanks to Clovis_Sangrail For This Post:
 
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