Dot "." missing from email attachment sent using SMTP.

Harsh Pawar · New User Joined: 04 Jun 2008 Posts: 25 Location: Noida

First let me apologize if this is a re-post. I tried searching but did not get the resolution.

I am sending an email as text attachment (which is an assembler macro) using SMTP. If we have a dot (".") on the first line; dot is neglected in the actual attachment. Example :

//IEBGENER EXEC PGM=IEBGENER
//SYSIN DD DUMMY
//SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSUT2 DD SYSOUT=(B,SMTP),DCB=(RECFM=FBA,LRECL=80,BLKSIZE=0)
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSUT1 DD DSN=FILE1,DISP=OLD
// DD DSN=FILE2,DISP=SHR
// DD DSN=FILE3,DISP=OLD
/*

FILE1 is :
HELO MVSHOST
MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>
RCPT TO:<[email protected]>
DATA
FROM: <[email protected]>
TO:<[email protected]>
SUBJECT: TEST
MIME-VERSION: 1.0
CONTENT-TYPE: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="SIMPLE BOUNDARY"
--SIMPLE BOUNDARY
CONTENT-TYPE: TEXT/PLAIN
This is for SMTP
CONTENT-DISPOSITION: ATTACHMENT;FILENAME="SMTP.TXT"

Initial code in FILE2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MVC VAR1,VAR2
LA R05,VAR3
AGO .AAA30
.AAA20 ANOP ,
MVC VAR2,VAR1
.AAA30
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Code in email attachment (notice the missing "." in AAA20 and AAA30)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MVC VAR1,VAR2
LA R05,VAR3
AGO .AAA30
AAA20 ANOP ,
MVC VAR2,VAR1
AAA30
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SMTP parameters are very sensitive , Is there a way to send the macro as it is in text format?

Thanks for helping.

Robert Sample · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 6:00 pm

SMTP attaches special meaning to a period (or dot) in the first position. I have not researched the SMTP specification in the RFC documentation to see if that can be avoided. If you want to know for sure, check the RFC specification.

Garry Carroll · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:13 pm

One workaround which worked for me was to preprocess the macro into a temporary dataset, prefixing each line with a dot and then e-mailing the temporary dataset. The prefixed dot gets removed from each line and the result looks just like the original......

Garry.

Harsh Pawar · New User Joined: 04 Jun 2008 Posts: 25 Location: Noida

Thanks,
I increased the size of file to 81 and put an extra '.' at column 1 using following :

OPTION COPY
OUTREC IFTHEN=(WHEN=(1,1,CH,EQ,C'.'),
OVERLAY=(1:C'.',1,80))

And in email job, I used all 81 LRECL files and following :

//SYSUT2 DD SYSOUT=(B,SMTP),DCB=(RECFM=FBA,LRECL=81,BLKSIZE=0)

Now it is working as expected and '.' is coming in the email attachment.