\Mail is an incredibly complex thing, combine that with trying to handle IPC issues when shelling out, then you are reinventing a wheel that should definitely not be re-invented. Net::SMTP is an example, though probably a more difficult one, there are lots,
http://search.cpan.org/modlist/Mail_and_Usenet_News/Mail
Mail::Mailer Mail::Sender MIME::Lite
Are some good choices, I use Mail::Box but generally it is way overkill, but since I know I will have it installed I usually default to it.
I wanted to switch from using sendmail in a pipe to using Mail::Sender, but I found that Mail::Sender seems to take a lot longer to send a message - not so much an issue for sending out status messages, but a serious problem for sending out newsletters or the like.
Peter.
--
<http://www.interarchy.com/> <http://download.interarchy.com/>
