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This Emailer is made of two parts.
Two PERL programs I wrote and some code wrote by the folks at TRIPOD. My code doesn't appear to have any bugs. But the code written by the folks at TRIPOD has one flaw which they will probably try to call a design flaw. Part One. - The Code I wroteThe code I wrote consists of 2 PERL computer programs which I wrote.
The filelist.pl program is passed the name of a formfile which is used by the TRIPOD function sendMail() to format the e-mail it sends. Filelist.pl is also passed the name of a file which contains the list of e-mail address. It verifys both files exist. If either file does not exist error messages are printed. If the files both exist filelist.pl prints the html which contains a form which you enter your e-mail address, the subject of the e-mail, and an optional reply to e-mail address and finally the text of your e-mail. The form also contains the name of the formfile and the email address file which will be passed to the bccmail3.pl program when the send button is clicked on the form. The form will look something like this: At this point the program filelist.pl has done its job and finishes. The filelist.pl program is about 100 lines of PERL code. When the send button on the form is clicked the program bccmail3.pl is executed. The bccmail3.pl program is about 200 lines of PERL code. It verifys that you have entered a FROM e-mail address, a SUBJECT, and some e-mail text. It also verifys that the FROM e-mail address looks valid. Next the bccmail3.pl program reads the file which contains the e-mail address were sending the e-mail to and makes them into PERL array variable. Later on each e-mail address is converted to a BCC. To send the e-mail bccmail3.pl then calls the function sendMail();and passes it the name of the formfile and the hash variable which contains the data which will be merged with the formfile to format the final e-mail. The function sendMail() was written by the folks at tripod and it has one MAJOR problem which I will explain in a while. Last the bccmail3.pl program checks the value returned by the function sendMail(). If the funciton worked it prints the e-mail addresses that the e-mail was sent to. If it fails it prints something like Something is screwed up. Part Two. - The Code written by the folks at TRIPODI think the code written by TRIPOD has one major design flaw or bug. When it sends the e-mail it creates a file based on the number of seconds it is currently past midnight, Jan 1, 1970 GMT. The problem is if two people use the program at the same second, the TRIPOD code will try to use the same filename for both of them which I think will probably cause one of the e-mails to not be sent. The files generated for this program look like
The TRIPOD function with the bug or design flaw is: sendMail();The other code written by TRIPOD to send the emails is in t he PERL library TripodMail.pm Other bugsTimeout bugsIf you try to send the e-mail a large number of e-mail addresses (say around 1000) the server will time out. You usually get this error message408 Request Time-out errorBecause of this I try to send e-mails in groups of 200 or less to prevent time outs. Other bugsWhen I first started using TRIPOD to send e-mail I got a number of other odd bugs. I don't know if it was because the servers were overloaded, traffic was heavy or if Tripod used those krappy Microsoft Windowz servers. I have not seen these bugs for a while. The errors were usually 500 errors like502 Bad Gatewaywhich indicate a server problem. The David Dorn and pudgy blond guy problemIn October 2001 I was told that David Dorn and the pudgy blond haired guy who put on the F.R.E.E. Supper Club have been telling people that I'm a government snitch or something like that for the past 4 years. I'm not a government snitch and never have been and I'm pretty pissed off that David Dorn is telling people hateful lies like this about me. But if you beleive David Dorn that I'm a government snitch then you probably shouldn't be using this web site to send e-mail to people |