Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:13:11 +1100
Reply-To: "Johnson, David" <David.Johnson@CBA.COM.AU>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: "Johnson, David" <David.Johnson@CBA.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: sending emails
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Actually Dave, I'm sorry to disagree with you after you said such nice
things about me, but Outlook uses MAPI: the Microsoft Mailer API.
The data exchanged between the SAS session and the application is
changed by the MAPI client, which could just as easily be Outlook
Express, Microsoft mail or any other mailer client using MAPI. You can
demonstrate this in stark reality just by trying to send an email to
multiple persons. The SMTP definition is that multiple addresses are
each contained within double quotes, delimited by a space and contained
as a group within brackets. Outlook will accept this, semi-colon or
comma delimiters, single quoting, email addresses, address book names
and all manner of other spurious structures: all in the name of being
user-friendly.
I seem to remember that I had no trouble attaching multiple files to an
email message sent with SMTP, but I'd need to check since I deliberately
avoid sending attachments, and HTML emails.
VIM is interesting, and I experimented with that when I first tried to
use email last millennium. We had an early Lotus email client called
cc:Mail, and I had an early palmtop computer built by HP with a 9600Bd
PCMCIA modem which had the cut down version of cc:Mail. I got my leave
pass to a distant SAS conference by pointing out that I could monitor
all my batch jobs by email while I was away. (SAS had released the
email engine for FILENAME with the new SAS version within the previous
few months.) VIM has some issues, but I'm afraid I didn't have time to
experiment with these more recently when I experimented with Pegasus as
an email client for some batch reporting. I still believe that a little
effort on my part would have made that work as easily as I remember
cc:Mail being set up.
Umm, and since I am being picky (it gives you a chance to add another
post to your post count): the size of the Proceedings for the conference
is governed by the Executive Committee. Key SAS employees are included
in that Committee, but the Executive have repeatedly pointed out that it
is a User conference. When the paper proceedings were finally laid to
rest a few years ago, we gained faster delivery of the Proceedings,
colour for our published papers, a new layout that better handled wide
images, and some relaxing of the page count that had applied hitherto.
Since the proceedings are on CD, much of the extra space is now taken up
by publishing a rolling three years of papers, which was a brilliant (if
obvious in hindsight) decision. However, with the increase in paper
imagery, I occasionally wonder when the limit might be imposed on file
size rather than on page count. I'm sure someone has already looked at
this, and I suspect we might see either a rationalisation, or a move to
DVD. The issue might be that DVD doesn't have the market proliferation
or standardisation of CD on computers. (And the stupid fight about
blu-ray standards comes to mind here.)
Kind regards
David
/* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of
theories to suit facts.
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - */
-----Original Message-----
From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
David L Cassell
Sent: Wednesday, 14 March 2007 2:32 PM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: sending emails
David.Johnson@CBA.COM.AU sagely replied:
>
>You're quite right Ben, the paper doesn't mention that wretched
>dialogue.
>
>It does however make the point fairly strongly that sending email
>through an email client is likely to cause corruption to the input
data.
>As a specific example, the use of the "NUL" option as a Null address as
>documented in the SAS FM will still cause email to be sent if "NUL" can
>be matched to an address in the email client address book. My friend
>in Praha suffered many such emails from me before I discovered and
>proved that the client would take the data it was given and try to
>"help" you to send a complete email.
>
>I remain a firm believer in email clients not being used in the path
>between SAS and email sending because of the changes they can cause.
>SMTP is very much better, although it does require the correct
>construction of email address strings. I refer to specific examples
>including the construction of multiple email addresses and the
>"corrections" the client will perform, while the SMTP server will
>simply refuse to process the malformed string.
>
>
>As other examples of client corruption; the string content of the
>message body can be changed, the encoding value can be altered, the
>client can "choke" on too many emails which requires patches such as
>the delaying of second and subsequent emails through a sleep() loop,
>the sender value can be changed to the default sender value on the
>client even if a different and valid email account and password are
provided.
>
>
>Thank you for the link to the dialogue beater. I knew one would be
>created eventually.
>
>Kind regards
>
>David
>
>/* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It is a capital mistake to
>theorize before one has data.
>Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of
>theories to suit facts.
>-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - */
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>ben.powell@CLA.CO.UK
>Sent: Friday, 9 March 2007 10:19 PM
>To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: sending emails
>
>That's a great paper. I'm not sure it mentions the dialogue Outlook
>throws up, that can be thwarted if you install ClickYes:
>http://www.contextmagic.com/express-clickyes/
>
>Rgds.
>
>On Fri, 9 Mar 2007 14:35:20 +1100, Johnson, David
><David.Johnson@CBA.COM.AU>
>wrote:
>
> >The conditional answer is "Yes".
> >
> >The conditions relate to the configuration of your SAS session and
> >your
>
> >email access. But generally you can, and a detailed tutorial was
> >presented on the subject at last year's SUGI. This paper might be of
> >some assistance.
> >
> >http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi31/256-31.pdf
> >
> >A situation that is similar to the one you are writing about is dealt
> >with late in the paper where email directives are discussed.
> >
> >
> >Kind regards
> >
> >David
> >
> >/* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It is a capital mistake
> >to
>
> >theorize before one has data.
> >Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of
> >theories to suit facts.
> >-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
> >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - */
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> >Emanuele Castano
> >Sent: Friday, 9 March 2007 2:25 PM
> >To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: sending emails
> >
> >hello all,
> >
> >does anyone know whether SAS can generate email messages? don't
> >worry, i am not intending to send spam emails! i score MCQ tests for
> >my classes in SAS, and it would be great if SAS could automatically
> >generate an email (through outlook, for instance) so that the content
> >for obs 1 on variable
> >1 is sent to the address indicated in variable 2.
> >
> >for instance, i have:
> >
> >10 castanoe@newschool.edu
> >
> >and email is generated for this email address, with 10 in the text.
> >
> >is it at all possible?
> >
> >thanks in advance.
> >
> >emanuele
Well, there was hardly room for anything else in that paper! It was
pretty full of detail as it was. And SAS doesn't give people an extra
50 pages for their paper. (Yet.)
There are plenty of other points that are relevant, but will have to
wait until David writes a SAS *book* on using email.
For example, the typical user is at the mercy of the rules enforced by
the sysadmins. So it may or may not be possible to attach anything. Or
it may be possible to attach only text/html/xml files but not binaries.
The use of attachments may invoke MIME, and that can introduce other fun
mail-like issues. Buy your sysadmins a beer and talk to them about
this.
Or there may be another MUA (Mail User Agent) besides MS Outlook.
Outlook has its flaws, but at least it attaches multiple files
intelligently.
I had plenty of headaches with Sun Mailtool on this one.
And MS Outlook at least uses SMTP, instead of, say, VIM, as Lotus Notes
insists on using. That adds a whole extra layer of complexity to the
process.
So check your MUA and your MTA (Mail Transport Agent), and check with
your system admins to see what they will let you do without major
reconfiguration of their mail servers.
HTH,
David
--
David L. Cassell
mathematical statistician
Design Pathways
3115 NW Norwood Pl.
Corvallis OR 97330
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