OT: UNIX email question/problem

[Bill Vermillion]

Courtney, the prominent pundit, on Mon, Aug 02 08:19  while half 
mumbling half-witicized: 

> We send emails out using the following commands

> kk(500,*)="Generated from dailyimp/import\n"<aa{"| mail -s
> "<ua<eb<"From"<ur<pn

> system noredraw "echo"<kk

> The values:
> aa = "Route:"<dai(3)<"Client:"<co<"Confirmed Accts:"<dai(9)
> ua = A message pulled from a file...in this case its
> "A_TWL_Route_Has_Been_Confirmed"
> eb = A message pulled from a file...in this case its the email address (one
> of many)
> ur = Is used to lookup the emaillist file... in this case its TWL
> pn = Is used to lookup the emaillist file... in this case its dailyimp

> Here is the email text we get:

> Generated from dailyimp/importn Route: 281360 Client: OSI COLLECTION SERVI
> Confirmed Accts: 703

> It gets to who it should, but it also generates a bunch weird emails...like
> these:

> 281360 at north-sh.nsa; 703 at north-sh.nsa; "Acc"@north-sh.nsa;
> COLLECTION at north-sh.nsa; "Cli=?????????????; Confirmed at north-sh.nsa;
> From at north-sh.nsa; OSI at north-sh.nsa; "Rou"@north-sh.nsa; SERVI at north-sh.nsa;
> TV3 at north-sh.nsa; courtney at northshoreagency.com; dailyimp at north-sh.nsa

> It appears to be picking up the addresses from the text I am
> sending to...but how come I am not getting Accts:? Does the
> ":" cause it to wipe out the 3 rightmost characters? Same with
> Client:

> Our mini email address is north-sh.nsa...but no where do I or
> the processing blow in that... so somehow what I send is being
> misinterpret...

> Any ideas?

Not without seeing what it was you actually sent to mail.
Getting all the headers correct can be tricky.   Using a ; instead
of a , - or vice versa - can lead to problems.

In the past when others have asked on this list it is usually
suggested to send your mail to a MUA - Mail User Agent - so it can
do all the work properly and pass it on to the MTA - Mail Transport
Agent.   

One that has been recommended is mutt.

You might want to check out Mark's "Fairlight Lightmail" as it
is designed to take the pain out of passing mail from an
application to the MTA.

He has a demo at   http://www.fairlite.com.    

As I recall JPR has posted the methods to use MUTT but I don't see
that I have saved them.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com