splitmail(1)splitmail(1)NAMEsplitmail - Split a large mail message into MIME-compliant partial mes‐
sages
SYNOPSISsplitmail [-d] [-v] [-s splitsize] [-p prefix] [-i id-suffix] [file-
name]
DESCRIPTION
The splitmail program will take an email message and break it up into
smaller pieces using the "message/partial" type defined by MIME, the
proposed Internet standard for multimedia mail formats.
By default it will take the message either from standard input or the
named file, and will produce a set of partial message files with names
like "/tmp/split.1" for the first part, and so on. The prefix
"/tmp/split." can be overridden using the "-p" option.
If the -d option is specified, the mail will actually be delivered. If
-v is specified, the verbose flag will be passed to sendmail.
The -i option can be used to make splitmail generate the pieces with
similar (but not identical) message-id fields, in a format which allows
them to be easily correlated with one another and which end with the
suffix provided on the command line after -i.
The default chunk size for spliting messages is 250000 at most sites,
though this is also a compile-time option. This can be overriden with
the -s switch, or with the environment variable SPLITSIZE.
Messages smaller than the chunk size will not be turned into partial
messages, but will be written to a single file or delivered as a single
message.
ENVIRONMENT
SPLITSIZE overrides the default chunk size. Setting SPLITSIZE to, say,
4000000 will effectively ensure that your messages are unlikely ever to
be split, but it may cause them to be rejected by some mail transport
software.
SEE ALSOmailto(1), metamail(1)BUGS
If the size of the input is just on the fencepost, and if it is coming
from a file rather than standard input, splitmail will sometimes esti‐
mate the number of parts wrong and will have to write out an extra
part. This is harmless but annoying. It is especially annoying if the
estimate was 2 but the real number was 1.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1992 Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore)
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this material for any
purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies, and
that the name of Bellcore not be used in advertising or publicity per‐
taining to this material without the specific, prior written permission
of an authorized representative of Bellcore. BELLCORE MAKES NO REPRE‐
SENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR SUITABILITY OF THIS MATERIAL FOR ANY
PURPOSE. IT IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WAR‐
RANTIES.
AUTHOR
Nathaniel S. Borenstein, Bellcore
Release 1 splitmail(1)
