SMTP send time

glenn has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Perhaps one of you has seen this and can help. I'm using Net::SMTP to send emails and loving it; except for one thing which i'm getting grief from one user about. The send time is wrong. It's running on a windows client, and could run on just about any version of windows. The SMTP example code shows the timezone as UTC, while i'm in EST (which also leads to a DST bonus question). This could potentially also run in India and or Germany, therefore I need to check the host system for the timezone. So because it's available in most versions of windows i'm using wmic to get the time which gives "(UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)" from which i take -0500. But still the send time of the email is an hour after i received it (instant). Any suggestions? I've tried looking at the SMTP spec and it should accept -0500 time format. Thank you.

I posted some extra code in case anyone else is trying to use SMTP and attach files and do email with HTML. This is part of a sub.

Updated with suggestion in case anyone wants this.

    my $subject = "Test Complete for station $station_num";
    my @addresses = split(",",$emailconfig{"addresses$diagmode"});
    for (my $a = 0; $a < @addresses; $a++) {
        if ($addresses[$a] !~ m/\@/) {
            $addresses[$a] .= "\@".$emailconfig{domain};
        }
    }

    my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localti
+me();
    $year += 1900;
    my $mytimezone = qx"wmic timezone get Description"; #(UTC-05:00) E
+astern Time (US & Canada)
    my $timezone = "EST"; #default
    foreach my $line (split("\n",$mytimezone)) {
        if ($line =~ m/\([UG][TM][CT]([+-]\d+:\d+)\)/) {
            $timezone = $1;
            $timezone =~ s/://;
            last;
        }
    }
    print "TIMEZONE: $timezone\n";
    #Create an RFC compliant time stamp
    my $Date = sprintf("%s, %02d %3s %04d %02d:%02d:%02d %5s",$dayofwe
+ek[$wday],$mday,$monthnames[$mon],$year,$hour - $isdst,$min,$sec,$tim
+ezone);

    my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new(Host=>$emailconfig{server}, Hello=>$emai
+lconfig{domain}, Timeout=>120, Debug=>0);
    if (not defined $smtp) {
        croak "Unable to connect to mailhost [$emailconfig{server}]";
    } else {
        $smtp->mail("NOREPLY\@ami.com");
        $smtp->to(@addresses);
        #start data to server
        $smtp->data();
        #HEADER
        $smtp->datasend("From: NOREPLY\@$emailconfig{domain}\n");
        $smtp->datasend("To: ".join(",",@addresses)."\n");
        $smtp->datasend("Reply-To: NOREPLY\@$emailconfig{domain}\n");
        $smtp->datasend("Date: $Date\n");
        $smtp->datasend("Subject: $subject\n");
        $smtp->datasend("MIME-Version: 1.0\n");
        $smtp->datasend("Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary= \"*B
+CKTR*\"\n");
        $smtp->datasend("\n"); #end content block
        #MSG:
        $smtp->datasend("--*BCKTR*\n");
        $smtp->datasend("Content-Type: ".$MIMEtype{html}[0]."; charset
+=UTF-8\n");
        $smtp->datasend("\n"); #end content block
        $smtp->datasend("$email_msg");
        $smtp->datasend("\n");
        #ATTACHMENTS
        my $path = "$reportconfig{sharedriveletter}:\\$system->{serial
+}->[0]\\";
        for (my $f = 1; $f < @{$system->{filename}}; $f++) {
            if (-e "$path$system->{filename}->[$f]") {
                logLine("attaching file $system->{filename}->[$f]");
                $smtp->datasend("--*BCKTR*\n");
                $smtp->datasend("Content-Type: ". $MIMEtype{substr($sy
+stem->{filename}->[$f],index($system->{filename}->[$f],".") + 1)}[0] 
+."; name=\"$system->{filename}->[$f]\"\n");#; charset=binary
                $smtp->datasend("Content-Transfer-Encoding: ". $MIMEty
+pe{substr($system->{filename}->[$f],index($system->{filename}->[$f],"
+.") + 1)}[1] ."\n");
                $smtp->datasend("Content-Disposition: attachment; file
+name=\"$system->{filename}->[$f]\"\n");
                $smtp->datasend("\n"); #end content block
                open (ATT, "< $path$system->{filename}->[$f]");
                while (my $input = <ATT>) {
                    if ($MIMEtype{substr($system->{filename}->[$f],ind
+ex($system->{filename}->[$f],".") + 1)}[1] eq "base64") {
                        $input = encode_base64($input);
                    }
                    $smtp->datasend($input);
                }
                close (ATT);
                $smtp->datasend("\n"); #separate each file with a new 
+line
            }
        }
        if ($system->{status}->[0] =~ m/fail/i) {
            $files{log}{file} =~ m/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\._]+)$/;
            my $logfile = $1;
            $smtp->datasend("--*BCKTR*\n");
            $smtp->datasend("Content-Type: ".$MIMEtype{log}[0]."; name
+=\"$logfile\"\n");
            $smtp->datasend("Content-Transfer-Encoding: ". $MIMEtype{l
+og}[1] ."\n");
            $smtp->datasend("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename
+=\"$logfile\"\n");
            $smtp->datasend("\n"); #end content block
            open (ATT, "< $files{log}{file}");
            while (my $input = <ATT>) {
                $smtp->datasend($input);
            }
            close (ATT);
            $smtp->datasend("\n"); #separate each file with a new line
        }
        # Send the END section break
        $smtp->datasend("--*BCKTR*--\n\n");
        #end data to server
        $smtp->dataend();
        #close connection to server (SEND)
        $smtp->quit;
    }
[download]

Comment on SMTP send time Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: SMTP send time by kennethk (Abbot) on Jul 01, 2014 at 23:25 UTC
It looks like you've already identified your issue. Right now, it's EDT which is -04:00, not -05:00. It looks like your `wmic` system call is lying about time zone, and I'll bet that `[localtime](8)` returns `1`, a.k.a. daylight savings. One way to correct your code would be to change your localtime call to `my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday, $isdst) = localtime( +);` [download] and then modify your timestamp code to `my $Date = sprintf("%s, %02d %3s %04d %02d:%02d:%02d %5s",$dayofweek[$ +wday],$mday,$monthnames[$mon],$year,$hour - $isdst,$min,$sec,$timezon +e);` [download] Or you can try to figure out how to get a correct answer from `wmic` #11929 First ask yourself `How would I do this without a computer?' Then have the computer do it the same way.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: SMTP send time by glenn (Scribe) on Jul 02, 2014 at 13:18 UTC
damn I wish I had thought of that. Thats good, and simple.	[reply]
Re: SMTP send time by wrog (Friar) on Jul 01, 2014 at 23:31 UTC
apparently "wmic timezone" does not give you the daylight savings time adjustment. note that DateTime::TimeZone actually works on Windows (or at least, it does on my box); there may be other packages that do as well	[reply]


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