DBFORMMAIL(1)

📦
version 3.9 · 3 versions
, in epel 9

💌 DBFORMMAIL(1) — the dbformmail manual, bestie edition 💌

okay so real quick: this is the page for dbformmail, and yes it lives in User Contributed Perl Documentation, so you know it's got lore. it writes you a shell script that'll send e-mail to a whole bunch of people at once. buckle up. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

dbformmail — write a shell script that will send e-mail to many people

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

dbformmail [-m MECHANISM] format_file.txt

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so basically: it reads a "form mail" message out of the file FORMAT_FILE.TXT, and it fills in the underscore-preceded column-names with actual data. 💖 Then it outputs a shell script — and that script is the thing that sends each message through some mail transport, the MECHANISM.

🚨 one (1) moral clause, no cap: do not use this program for evil or I will have to come over and have words with you. you've been warned, bestie. 😤

huge thing to know, and I mean huge: this program does NOT actually SEND the mail. it writes a shell script that will send the mail for you. the recommendation is literally: save it to a file, check it (one last time!), then run it with sh. main character move is reading your own script before running it, fr fr. 👑

also — and this is the plot twist — unlike most Fsdb programs, this program does not output a FSDB file. it's just built different. 🌈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -m MECHANISM — picks the mail-sending mechanism. your choices are Mail, sendmail, and mh. defaults to "Mail". 💌
    • Mail uses a Berkeley-style /usr/bin/Mail.
    • sendmail invokes /usr/bin/sendmail.
    • mh writes messages into the current directory, treating it as an mh-style mailbox (one message per file, with filesnames as sequential integrates — that's the manpage's exact wording, don't come for me 😭💀).

then there's the standard fsdb options, and this module supports all of them too:

  • -d — enable debugging output. 🐛
  • -i or --input InputSource — read from InputSource. typically a file name, or "-" for standard input, or (if you're in Perl) a IO::Handle, Fsdb::IO or Fsdb::BoundedQueue object.
  • -o or --output OutputDestination — write to OutputDestination. typically a file name, or "-" for standard output, or (if you're in Perl) a IO::Handle, Fsdb::IO or Fsdb::BoundedQueue object.
  • --autorun or --noautorun — by default, programs process automatically, but Fsdb::Filter objects in Perl do not run until you invoke the run() method. the --(no)autorun option controls that behavior within Perl. 🎛️
  • --help — show help. 🫶
  • --man — show full manual. (hi, you're here 👋)

🌸 SAMPLE USAGE 🌸

🍓 Input:

#fsdb account passwd uid gid fullname homedir shell
johnh * 2274 134 John_Heidemann /home/johnh /bin/bash
greg * 2275 134 Greg_Johnson /home/greg /bin/bash
root * 0 0 Root /root /bin/bash
# this is a simple database

🧚 Sample form (in the file form.txt):

To: _account
From: the sysadmin <root>
Subject: time to change your password

Please change your password regularly.
Doesn't this message make you feel safer?

⭐ Command:

cat DATA/passwd.fsdb | dbformmail form.txt >outgoing.sh

🔥 Output (in outgoing.sh):

#!/bin/sh
sendmail 'johnh' <<'END'
To: johnh
From: the sysadmin <root>
Subject: time to change your password

Please change your password regularly.
Doesn't this message make you feel safer?

END
sendmail 'greg' <<'END'
(etc.)

and to actually send the mail, run

sh outgoing.sh

periodt. that's the whole flow. 💜

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

Fsdb.

Copyright (C) 1991-2018 by John Heidemann <johnh@isi.edu>

This program is distributed under terms of the GNU general public license, version 2. See the file COPYING with the distribution for details.

and that's the tea bestie 💖 this page is from perl v5.32.1, dated 2024-08-02, manual page DBFORMMAIL(1) — go send some mail responsibly 🦋✨

📦 where this page comes from