uuencode and outlook attachment issue

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello All,

I am using uuencode to attach multiple zip file in one email body. The file is send to multiple recipients. I use lotus notes and can view the attachments very well and so does the gmail and yahoo recipients.
Issue is with outlook users, they see attachment as garbage. This is the command I am using

(cat $MAIL_BODY ; uuencode reject.zip $FILE_NAME".zip") | mailx -s "$SUBJECT" -c $CC -r $REP_TO $TO

While doing search for a solution I found out Outlook can't read/distinguish attachment from uuencoded file and I have to use third party decoders.
On Unix side I found suggestions to use -m switch with mailx, which when I used got this error

mailx: illegal option -- m

mailx -a

is not an option for me as I have to compose one email with multiple body and their respective attachment following them, hence I am using uuencode

Please let me know what can be done to resolve this uuencode and mime format issue.

2

Please post what Operating System and version you are using and what Shell you prefer. There is much variation in the "mailx" command.

There has been a long history of Microsoft badged products called "Outlook". Please mention the exact version of the Microsoft Operating system and the exact title and version of the "Outlook".

First thing I'd try is an echo . after the mail body to formally terminate the mail body.

Please post a small sample of the header portion of the "gatbage".

3

I am on Suse-Linux 2.6.16 with bash
user is on Windows 7 I'll get back with the outlook version.

I added echo . but results were same:

(cat $MAIL_BODY ; echo . ; uuencode reject.zip $FILE_NAME".zip") | mailx -s "$SUBJECT" -c $CC -r $REP_TO $TO

Here is excerpt of how attachment looks in outlook

begin 644 profile
M97AP;W)T(%!23TI%0U1?2$]-13TO9&%T80IE>'!O<G0@2$]-13TO9&%T80IE
M>'!O<G0@3$]'3TY?1$E2/2]D871A+W!R;VIE8W0O8F]C=6)E=&PO;&]G;VX*
4

I think you need to format the attachment with a MIME utility. Not sure off hand if you can do this with mail/mailx but a simple Perl script can handle it.