redirection bash: content from variable, not from file

Question

i am using mutt to create and send mails from a bash script.

like this:

$ mutt -s SUBJECT MAIL_TO_ADDRESS < BODY_CONTENT_FILE

So i always have to write a file before calling mutt, is there a solution to pass information directly from script or shell variable ?

Answer 1

Sure.

For literal content, you can use a here-document:

mutt -s "$SUBJECT" "$ADDRESS" <<EOF
body of message goes here
and all of it is included
until you have a line with the terminator
which is whatever you put after the `<<`
in this case,
EOF

Note that parameters will be expanded inside the here-document as if it were a double-quoted string, unless you quote the terminator (with e.g. <<"EOF"), in which case it will be treated as a a single-quoted string instead.

If it's a short message, or already in a variable, it's probably easier to use a here-string instead:

mutt -s "$SUBJECT" "$ADDRESS" <<<"$BODY"