Mail::T...::Mailx(3)

📦
version 4.01 · 9 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 NAME 💖

Mail::Transport::Mailx — she's a User Contributed Perl Documentation girlie, and her whole job is: transmit messages using external mailx program. 💌

🦋 INHERITANCE 🦋

okay so the family tree, bestie, and yes she's got main character energy at the top:

Mail::Transport::Mailx
  is a Mail::Transport::Send
  is a Mail::Transport
  is a Mail::Reporter

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

my $sender = Mail::Transport::Mailx->new(...);
$sender->send($message);

that's literally it, no cap 🌸

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

So this implements mail transport using the external programs 'mailx', "Mail", or 'mail'. When it gets instantiated, the mailer will look for any of these binaries in specific system directories, and the first program found is taken. first come first served, periodt. 💅

⚠️ WARNING: There are many security issues with mail and mailx. DO NOT USE these commands to send messages which contains data derived from any external source!!!

Under Linux, freebsd, and bsdos the "mail", "Mail", and "mailx" names are just links to the same binary. The implementation is very primitive, pre-MIME standard, what may cause many headers to be lost 😭. For these platforms (and probably for other platforms as well), you can better not use this transport mechanism. not me telling you to avoid it — I am telling you to avoid it, fr fr.

Extends "DESCRIPTION" in Mail::Transport::Send.

💅 METHODS 💅

Extends "METHODS" in Mail::Transport::Send.

🎀 Constructors 🎀

Extends "Constructors" in Mail::Transport::Send.

$class->new(%options)

Inherited, see "Constructors" in Mail::Reporter.

Here's the whole options board, and yes I kept the header line exactly because it's iconic:

 -Option    --Defined in     --Default
  executable  Mail::Transport  undef
  hostname    Mail::Transport  'localhost'
  interval    Mail::Transport  30
  password    Mail::Transport  undef
  port        Mail::Transport  undef
  proxy       Mail::Transport  undef
  retry       Mail::Transport  <unlimited>
  style                        <autodetect>
  timeout     Mail::Transport  120
  username    Mail::Transport  undef
  via         Mail::Transport  'mailx'
  • executable => $file
  • hostname => $host|\@hosts
  • interval => $span
  • password => $password
  • port => $port
  • proxy => $path
  • retry => $count|undef
  • style => 'BSD'|'RFC822' — okay so there are two version of the "mail" program. The newest accepts RFC822 messages, and automagically collect information about where the message is to be send to. The BSD style mail command predates MIME, and expects lines which start with a '~' (tilde) to specify destinations and such. This field is autodetect, however on some platforms both versions of "mail" can live (like various Linux distributions). sneaky 😳
  • timeout => $span
  • username => $username
  • via => CLASS|$name

🦋 Attributes 🦋

Extends "Attributes" in Mail::Transport::Send.

📬 Sending mail 📬

Extends "Sending mail" in Mail::Transport::Send.

  • $obj->destinations( $message, [$address|\@addresses] ) — Inherited, see "Sending mail" in Mail::Transport::Send
  • $obj->putContent($message, $fh, %options) — Inherited, see "Sending mail" in Mail::Transport::Send
  • $obj->send($message, %options) — Inherited, see "Sending mail" in Mail::Transport::Send
  • $obj->trySend($message, %options) — Inherited, see "Sending mail" in Mail::Transport::Send

🛰️ Server connection 🛰️

Extends "Server connection" in Mail::Transport::Send.

  • $obj->findBinary( $name, [@directories] ) — Inherited, see "Server connection" in Mail::Transport
  • $obj->remoteHost() — Inherited, see "Server connection" in Mail::Transport
  • $obj->retry() — Inherited, see "Server connection" in Mail::Transport

💀 Error handling 💀

Extends "Error handling" in Mail::Transport::Send.

  • $obj->AUTOLOAD() — Inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter
  • $obj->notImplemented() — Inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter

🧹 Cleanup 🧹

Extends "Cleanup" in Mail::Transport::Send.

  • $obj->DESTROY() — Inherited, see "Cleanup" in Mail::Reporter

🔥 DIAGNOSTICS 🔥

the drama corner, bestie, every single one of these:

  • Error: cannot find binary of mailx. — Cast by new()
  • Fault: cannot open pipe to $program: $! — Cast by trySend()
  • Error: class $package does not implement method $method. — Fatal error: the specific $package (or one of its superclasses) does not implement this method where it should. This message means that some other related classes do implement this method however the class at hand does not. Probably you should investigate this and probably inform the author of the package. Cast by notImplemented()
  • Warning: message has no destination. — It was not possible to figure-out where the message is intended to go to. Cast by destinations()
  • Warning: resent group does not specify a destination. — The message which is sent is the result of a bounce (for instance created with Mail::Message::bounce()), and therefore starts with a "Received" header field. With the "bounce", the new destination(s) of the message are given, which should be included as "Resent-To", "Resent-Cc", and "Resent-Bcc".

The "To", "Cc", and "Bcc" header information is only used if no "Received" was found. That seems to be the best explanation of the RFC.

As alternative, you may also specify the "to" option to some of the senders (for instance Mail::Transport::SMTP::send(to) to overrule any information found in the message itself about the destination. Cast by destinations()

  • Fault: sending via mailx mailer $program failed: $! — Mailx (in some shape: there are many different implementations) did start accepting messages, but did not succeed sending it. Cast by trySend()

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

This module is part of Mail-Transport version 4.01, built on December 13, 2025. Website: http://perl.overmeer.net/CPAN/

📜 LICENSE 📜

For contributors see file ChangeLog.

This software is copyright (c) 2001-2025 by Mark Overmeer.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

okay and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this one came from perl v5.42.0, dated 2026-01-17, and it's filed under Mail::T...::Mailx(3) — go forth and maybe, like, don't actually use mailx for anything external 🫶✨

📦 where this page comes from