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Email out of R (code)

3 messages · nutterb, MacQueen, Don, Uwe Ligges

nutterb
# 
Thanks for posting this.  If anyone is interested in a short extension to
include an attachment, try the function below.

I make no guarantees though.  Also, note that winDialog() is used in a
couple places, so it may need some therapy before working outside of
Windows.

send.email <- function(to, from, subject, 
  message, attachment=NULL,
  username, password,
  server="smtp.gmail.com:587",
  confirmBeforeSend=TRUE){
  # to: a list object of length 1.  Using list("Recipient" =
"recip at somewhere.net") will send the message to the address but 
  #     the name will appear instead of the address.
  # from: a list object of length 1.  Same behavior as 'to'
  # subject: Character(1) giving the subject line.
  # message: Character(1) giving the body of the message
  # attachment: Character(1) giving the location of the attachment
  # username: character(1) giving the username.  If missing and you are
using Windows, R will prompt you for the username.
  # password: character(1) giving the password.  If missing and you are
using Windows, R will prompt you for the password.
  # server: character(1) giving the smtp server.
  # confirmBeforeSend: Logical.  If True, a dialog box appears seeking
confirmation before sending the e-mail.  This is to 
  #                    prevent me to send multiple updates to a collaborator
while I am working interactively.  
  
  if (!is.list(to) | !is.list(from)) stop("'to' and 'from' must be lists")
  if (length(from) > 1) stop("'from' must have length 1")
  if (length(to) > 1) stop("'send.email' currently only supports one
recipient e-mail address")
  if (length(attachment) > 1) stop("'send.email' can currently send only one
attachment")
  if (length(message) > 1){ 
    stop("'message' must be of length 1")
    message <- paste(message, collapse="\\n\\n")
  }
  
  if (is.null(names(to))) names(to) <- to
  if (is.null(names(from))) names(from) <- from
  if (!is.null(attachment)) if (!file.exists(attachment)) stop(paste("'",
attachment, "' does not exist!", sep=""))
  
  if (missing(username)) username <- winDialogString("Please enter your
e-mail username", "")
  if (missing(password)) password <- winDialogString("Please enter your
e-mail password", "")
  
  require(rJython)
  rJython <- rJython()

  rJython$exec("import smtplib")
  rJython$exec("import os")
  rJython$exec("from email.MIMEMultipart import MIMEMultipart")
  rJython$exec("from email.MIMEBase import MIMEBase")
  rJython$exec("from email.MIMEText import MIMEText")
  rJython$exec("from email.Utils import COMMASPACE, formatdate")
  rJython$exec("from email import Encoders")
  rJython$exec("import email.utils")

  mail<-c(
  #Email settings
  paste("fromaddr = '", from, "'", sep=""),
  paste("toaddrs  = '", to, "'", sep=""),
  "msg = MIMEMultipart()",
  paste("msg.attach(MIMEText('", message, "'))", sep=""),
  paste("msg['From'] = email.utils.formataddr(('", names(from), "',
fromaddr))", sep=""),
  paste("msg['To'] = email.utils.formataddr(('", names(to), "', toaddrs))",
sep=""), 
  paste("msg['Subject'] = '", subject, "'", sep=""))
  
  if (!is.null(attachment)){
    mail <- c(mail,
      paste("f = '", attachment, "'", sep=""),
     "part=MIMEBase('application', 'octet-stream')",
     "part.set_payload(open(f, 'rb').read())",
     "Encoders.encode_base64(part)",
     "part.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename=\"%s\"' %
os.path.basename(f))",
     "msg.attach(part)")
  }

#SMTP server credentials
  mail <- c(mail, 
    paste("username = '", username, "'", sep=""),
    paste("password = '", password, "'", sep=""),

#Set SMTP server and send email, e.g., google mail SMTP server
    paste("server = smtplib.SMTP('", server, "')", sep=""),
    "server.ehlo()",
    "server.starttls()",
    "server.ehlo()",
    "server.login(username,password)",
    "server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddrs, msg.as_string())",
    "server.quit()")

  message.details <- 
    paste("To:               ", names(to), " (", unlist(to), ")", "\n",
          "From:             ", names(from), " (", unlist(from), ")", "\n",
          "Using server:     ", server, "\n",
          "Subject:          ", subject, "\n",
          "With Attachments: ", attachment, "\n",
          "And the message:\n", message, "\n", sep="")

  if (confirmBeforeSend) 
   SEND <- winDialog("yesnocancel", paste("Are you sure you want to send
this e-mail to ", unlist(to), "?", sep=""))
   else SEND <- "YES"
  
  if (SEND %in% "YES"){ 
    jython.exec(rJython,mail)
    cat(message.details)
  }
  else cat("E-mail Delivery was Canceled by the User")
}

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MacQueen, Don
# 
The various suggestions seem kind of complex to me, at least on a
unix-like system (including Mac OS X).
This is what I do:

  sink('tmp.txt')
  cat('This is the body of the message\n')
  sink()
  system('cat tmp.txt | mail -s "A test email" macqueen1 at llnl.gov')

One could probably avoid the temporary external text file using
connections, but I haven't had that need.


For attachments, the following approach works on at least some systems
(RHEL for one):

  pdf('temp.pdf')
  ## create a plot
  dev.off()

  sink('tmp.txt')
  ## print() and cat() commands
  sink()

  cmd <- '/bin/mailx -s "Subject line text"
         -a temp.pdf -S replyto=macqueen1 at llnl.gov
          recipient at some.host < tmp.txt'
  system(cmd)


It's not hard, of course, to wrap such a thing up in a function with
arguments for various elements such as the subject, the file names, the
email address(es), and then construct the cmd using paste().
Uwe Ligges
# 
R has packages for almost everything, so there is "sendmailR" ....

Uwe Ligges
On 28.10.2011 20:04, MacQueen, Don wrote: