UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi
I am totally dummy as far as UNIX is concerned, so please apologize.
I was just given the syntax to send multiple attachments with a body.txt message, it works great and we use it a lot.

Now, my question is : can we have the body to be a Binary file (like a Word Document for example)?

My customers gave me a Word document (with some formattings like colors, bullets, bold, underline, etc), and they would like to see that in the Body Message of the email.

Here is the syntax that we currently use to send body.txt with a CSV attachment. We would like the same syntax but for a body in DOC format (or equivalent... maybe XML ??)

$Unix_Command = cd /(mypath)/; (cat body.txt; uuencode attachment.csv attachment.csv) | mailx -m -s "My Subject" christophe.kirch@orange-ftgroup.com

Please note :
We are on HP-UX, but planning to move to LINUX in 2008.
We are on Lotus Notes but planning to move to Outlook in 2008.
We are launching the UNIX command from Peoplesoft SQR Reports, hence we would ideally need the command to be in one single row. [else i am still open to have it in a shell format, since we can also launch that from SQR]

Thanks in advance
Rgds
Chris

The formatting of a body has to match the "content-type".

I strongly recommend you don't use a word document as a body, if want to be fancy then use HTML or, if you must, RTF.

Hi Porter,

I am glad to see i am not the only one working during this bank holiday !
Please forgive my ignorance, but i am not sure to fully understand your answer.

- What do you mean by "Content-type" and how can i change/set that up ?
- True that i do not necessarily need DOC extension. It can be RTF or HTML, or whatever gives same results at the end!

=> I have just tried with RTF (i saved my DOC as RTF), but then i received the email with some junk characters in it...
By the way (and sorry for this "stupid" question) : when i FTP the RTF or HTML file from my Desktop to our UNIX server : shall i use ASCII or Binary ?
I think I tried both (and some error), but please confirm me.

TIA!
Rgds
Chris

No, I'm not working.

content-type is a SMTP mail header field that describes the data being sent.

Otherwise the mail client has no idea on the format of the data. The file extension means nothing because it is not part of the message as we are talking about the content, not an attachment.

Search on this site and you will find examples....

basically the stdin to mailx is smtp-header fields followed by the actual content

Hi again PORTER,
Glad you are not working... me i am... and need to solve my issue asap!

Sorry to be a pain, but here are my (hopefully) last questions :

1- when i ftp DOC, RTF, HTM, HTML, XML from my desktop to our UNIX server (via WS FTP PRO), do i need to use ASCII or BINARY option ?

2- in my CAT command, do i need to UUENCODE the BODY ?
I know i do not need to do (i must NOT actually) when it is a TXT file, but what about the other extensions (as per above).

[I told you i was a dummy.....]

The two options are basically ascii or binary.

RTF, HTM, HTML, XML are all simple text formats hence ascii will do.

DOC can by *anything* but my guess is it's a MS Word document so use binary.