Thread: How do I send mail ?

At minimum, you need a TCP/IP client. You might need a TCP/IP server. You could then learn enough of the SMTP protocol to do what you want, it is probably not that complicated. There may some libraries around to cover that, altho a quick google didn't turn up too much WRT C/C++.

I would not rely on sending general mail directly from an individual computer; many large ISPs will just chuck whatever you send them without looking at it. The extent and consequences of that are debatable:

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/proje...ml#post1081568

So consider yourself warned, but don't take my word for it if you don't want to.

There may also be some open source mail server that you can plug into, I dunno, but the same whitelist problem still applies. Your best bet is probably to use your real email address and send to your ISP's mailserver, the same way your regular email software does.

Originally Posted by gilit2

Thanks
I don't need a mail server or client.

So How would I do it in C++ ?

As the guy above said - you either need to write it or find a library of someone that's already written it. It's *NOT* as simple as just a one-liner in C++. For a start, it differs depending on what system you're using and how it's configured and whether you send directly to the recipient or to your ISP's mailserver, etc. In C# (which only works on Windows), they give you a nice one-liner. C++ does not, and will not, ever have one because you can't make it work the same across all systems.

I advise you write your spammy application in another language, find a pre-written C++ library, or learn how to talk SMTP.

Originally Posted by gilit2

Thanks
I don't need a mail server or client.

Yes you do, if you want to try and send email.

I think that in C# (windows), they have a class
and It requires only to call it like :
files: MyFilesObject
and then MyFilesObject.sendFile (... filename .. )

I don't know C#, but the "I think" looks a little sketchy to me. Have you actually used this function to send email to another computer?

If not, most likely you are a little confused about what's going on, etc.

I will reiterate my advice:

"I advise you write your spammy application in another language, find a pre-written C++ library, or learn how to talk SMTP."

Writing the code to send an email message direct from a C++ program requires either a library that has written the code for you already (google "C++ library smtp", for instance), or you WRITING one of those yourself (effectively). I'd be impressed if you could do it reliably in under a few hundred lines of codes, just for the most basic of cases. It's not something someone is just going to knock up for you on these forums.

MIME encoding, UUencoding, SMTP, possibly TLS, certainly lots of dealing with SMTP commands that could crop up with the various servers you're sending email to, etc. You can't just "bodge" this. Find a library that does it properly, or learn how to program ALL of those things. Just a hint, the RFC for SMTP alone is about 68 pages - without a single line of code - even for a hideously out-of-date version of it, and the VMime library - the first I found on Google - is about 7 years of work and hundreds of thousands of lines of code. All that just to send an email. Now how complicated do you think that's going to be to do if you can't even google it yourself or even know what SMTP is before you started?