NAME
mime-tool - a simple program to construct MIME messages with attached
files
SYNOPSIS
mime [ -dDvV ] [ -S subject ] [ -F from-address ] [ -T to-address ] [
-C carbon-copy address ] [ -P prolog-text ] [ -E epiplogue-text ] [ -B
boundry ] [ -O overall content-type ] { [ -78abiquxopm ] [ -t content-
type ] filename }
DESCRIPTION
The mime program constructs MIME messages with attached files. The user
can specify the content type (application/octet-stream, text/plain or a
user specified type), content type encoding (7bit, 8bit, binary, base64
and auto-detect), content disposition (attached or inline) and the
content boundry string. The user can also specify some mail related
options: subject, from-address, to-addres, carbon-copy addres, prolog-
text and epilog-text.
The output of the MIME-tool program can be sent directly to the mail,
mailx or sendmail commands (or any other command that accepts RFC-822
formatted messages).
NOTE: Specifying 7-bit encoding for an attachment that contains 8-bit
data will convert any data bytes whose high-bit is set to question
marks.
OPTIONS
-7 7-bit ASCII encoding
-8 8-bit ASCII encoding
-a application/octet-stream content type
-b binary encoding
-d low detail debugging
-D high detail debugging
-s write a subpart
-i disposition: inline (instead of attachment)
-q quoted-printable encoding
-c content-type
explicit content type
-t text/plain content type
-o omit disposition line
-u unknown encoding, auto-detect
-v verbose messages
-V very verbose messages
-x base64 encoding
-p copy existing MIME part
-o omit content-disposition
-m omit content-transfer-encoding
-n filename
override the filename in the disposition header
-N don’t add a filename parameter in the disposition header
-0 no-op
EXAMPLES
Using MIME-tool to write a mail message to a file:
mime -S "test message" -F me@foo.net -T someone@somewhere.net
file1 > test.msg
Using MIME-tool with the mail command:
mime -S "test message" -F me@foo.net file1 | mail
someone@somewhere.net
Using MIME-tool with the mailx command:
mime -S "test message" -F me@foo.net file1 | mailx
someone@somewhere.net
Using MIME-tool with the sendmail command:
mime -S "test message" -F me@foo.net file1 | sendmail
someone@somewhere.net
VERSION
This is version 1.5.topal3 from June 2009.
KNOWN BUGS
Most of the header values are not properly quoted or folded, so long or
complex values for these headers may cause problems. Specifically, the
from-address, to-address, carbon-copy-address and content-type headers
may not be properly quoted or folded.
For some reason, certain e-mail clients (espcially from a large
software company located in Redmond, Washington) don’t seem to
recognize file attachments as attachments, but instead displays them as
inline attachments. (maybe this isn’t MIME-tool’s fault, but I’ve
gotten a few e-mails about it, so I’m mentioning it here)
AUTHOR
mime is written by Jeffrey Dutky <dutky@bellatlantic.net>
Oscar Esteban spotted an off-by-one error in the base64 encoding
function.
Sergey Lapin spotted a bug in the filename header construction.
Chris Hemphill noticed that the documentation (this manual page and the
README file) didn’t include any examples of how to call the program
with common mail commands.
Some additional fixes and additions by Phil Brooke to support Topal.
AVAILABILITY
The original MIME-tool package can be downloaded from my web page at
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~dutky
This modified version is distributed with Topal:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phil.brooke/topal/