1.6 The Body

The body of a mail message consists of everything following the first blank line to the end of the file. When you sent your sendstuff file, it contained only a body. Now edit the file sendstuff and add a small header.

Subject: a test            

 
 add
                             
 add
 This is a one line message.

The Subject: header line is an optional one. The sendmail program passes it through as is. Here, the Subject: line is followed by a blank line and then the message text, forming a header and a body. Note that a blank line must be truly blank. If you put space or tab characters in it, thus forming an "empty-looking" line, the header will not be separated from the body as intended.

Send this file to yourself again, running sendmail by hand as you did before:

% 

/usr/lib/sendmail 

you

 <sendstuff

Notice that our Subject: header line was carried through without change:

From [email protected]  Fri Dec 13 08:11:44 1996 Return-Path: [email protected] Received: (from you@localhost) by Here.US.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4)        id AA04599 for you; Fri, 31 Dec 96 08:11:44 -0700 Date: Fri, 13 Dec 96 08:11:43 From: [email protected] (Your Full Name) Message-Id: <[email protected]> 

Subject: a test                                 


 note
 To: you  This is a one line message.