metasend(1) DG/UX R4.11MU05 metasend(1)
NAME
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.
metasend is not as friendly as mailto, and it is strongly recommended
that the user who wishes to send a MIME message use mailto. metasend
is intended to be used by other products or utilities to send MIME
messages.
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 comand
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, 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
The use of -n on the command line indicates another file is to be
included in this mail message. The options -m and -f, at a minimum,
must also be used and must appear separately for each included file.
Before each use of the -n option on the command line, the options -m
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.
SEE ALSO
mailto(1), metamail(1), mimencode(1), splitmail(1), mime(5)
NOTICES
Do not depend on metasend to do a good job of choosing the type of
encoding if you don't specify one.
The metasend command is intended primarily to be used by vendor
products, tool-writers, and 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.
Licensed material--property of copyright holder(s)