metasend(1)

metasend -- crude interface for sending non-text mail

Synopsis

metasend [-b] [-c cc] [-e encoding] [-f filename] [-m MIME-type] [-s subject] [-S splitsize] [-t to] [-z] [-n]

Description

The metasend program allows a user to send one or more pre-existing data files as non-text multimedia mail.

With no arguments, the program asks the user for the ``To'', ``Subject'', and ``CC'' fields. It then asks for the name of a MIME ``Content-type''. Next, it asks the user for the name of an existing file containing that type of data; and it asks what encoding type, if any, should be applied to this data. Finally, it asks if you want to include information from an additional file, in which case prompting is repeated for the next file.

Alternately, all of this information can be provided on the command line.

Options

The following command line options are supported:

-t to: specifies the ``To'' address.
-c cc: specifies the ``CC'' address.
-e encoding: specifies the type of encoding. Must be either base64, quoted-printable, 7bit, or x-uue. If 7bit, no encoding is performed.
-f filename: specifies the file containing the data.
-m MIME-type: specifies the MIME ``Content-type''.
-s subject: specifies the ``Subject'' field.
-S splitsize: specifies the maximum size before splitting into parts via splitmail.
-b: specifies batch or non-interactive mode. Must be used with -f, -m, -s, and -t, or the command will exit and return an error.
-z: specifies that the temporary files should be deleted even if delivery fails.
-n: specifies that an additional file is included.

Usage

Before each use of the -n option on the command line, the options -m, -c, and -f, at a minimum, must also be used and must appear separately for each included file.

If more than one file is named, the parts are combined into a single multipart MIME object.

The mail is delivered using splitmail, so if very long will arrive as several pieces, which is automatically reassembled by metamail. The definition of very long can be altered using the -S flag or the SPLITSIZE environment variable.

References

mailto(1), metamail(1), mimencode(1), splitmail(1)

Notices

Do not depend on metasend to do a good job of choosing the type of encoding if you do not specify one.

The metasend command is intended primarily for mail hackers. A friendlier interface to non-text mail is provided by mailto.

MIME syntax checking on user-supplied ``Content-type'' fields is not done, and users are all too likely to provide bogus MIME ``Content-type'' values. In particular, various characters are not allowed when parameters are passed unless the parameters are enclosed in double quotes, but this sort of restriction is hard to enforce in a shell script.

Author is Nathaniel S. Borenstein, Bell Communications Research, Inc. See copyright page for further information.