Re: [PLUG] Auto-send Email

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

> Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:05:22 -0500
> From: Eugene Smiley <eug+plug@esmiley.net>
>
> Corrected /dev/null.

Bad habit of mine.  I started out on DOS, which uses NUL, and I can 
never remember which is what.  So I type /dev/nu{tab} and use whatever I 
get.  In this case I happened to be on a Debian box that has both 
/dev/nul and /dev/null.  But my Gutsy box only has the more canonical 
/dev/null, which I should have used.  Sorry...


> Added an rm -f to delete the file only after sending since it won't
> be needed again.
>
> Final result:
> auto_send=`{ ls -t autosendfile* | tail -n1; } 2> /dev/null`
> [ "$auto_send" ] && cat "$auto_send" | mail -e -s 'Autosend' list; \
> rm -f "$auto_send"

WARNING: that will delete the file whether the 'mail' part works or 
not!!!  I'd use this so we only delete if everything worked (lines 
broken for email):
	[ "$auto_send" ] && cat "$auto_send" \
	  |  mail -e -s 'Autosend' list \
	  && rm -f "$auto_send"

Note a trivial style point above.  When I have to break lines, I like to 
put the operator at the beginning of the line rather than leave it on 
the end of the preceding line.  IMO that makes it much more obvious not 
only that you're continuing a broken line, but what you're doing.  I 
also indent a bit.  Compare the snippet above with this, which I 
consider much less readable:
	[ "$auto_send" ] && cat "$auto_send" | \
	mail -e -s 'Autosend' list && \
	rm -f "$auto_send"


> Works brilliantly. Thanks. And my brain thanks you.

Happy to help.
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|        jp{at}jpsdomain{dot}org
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
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