Hi all,

I am trying to email a text file using the mailx command. I am doing the following:

#!/bin/sh

mailx -s 'Report' emailaddress < /directory_name/filename.out

The problem comes about in the fact that I will not know the exact name of the file being emailed so I wanted to use a wildcard since it changes several times per day, but I know that it will have a .out extension. Just a random FYI, I am not worried about sending the wrong file because the .out file will be the only one in the directory. Anyway, I tried doing the following, but when I try running the script below, I get an error saying "/directory_name/*.out: cannot open"

#!/bin/sh

mailx -s 'Report' emailaddress < /directory_name/*.out

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Can you once try:
But are you sure that there will be only one file with extension .out, irrespective of filename?

Hi,

Yes, I'm positive that there will only be one .out file. The reason why I don't know the name of the file is because the file is generated several times per day, but during its generation process, it deletes all .out files before creating the new updated .out file.

Also, I tried running both versions that you suggested and I get a syntax error saying '(' unexpected.

It's bash specific process substitution. So either change shell to bash and then invoke it:
Or, you can try:

If I understood your advice correctly, I tried the following three things with different results for each:

First Option:

#!/bin/bash

mailx -s 'Report' abc@example.com <(cat /directory_name/*.out)

And I get a "cannot open /directory_name/*.out" error. Also, no email is sent.

Second Option:
#!/bin/bash

find /directory_name -name "*.out" -print | xargs mailx -s 'Report' abc@example.com
mailx -s 'Report' abc@example.com <(find /directory_name -name "*.out" -print)

I get a blank prompt so when I do Ctrl+C so that the blank prompt goes away, it sends the email, but it's blank.

Third Option:
find /directory_name -name "*.out" -print | xargs mailx -s 'Report' abc@example.com

Sends a blank email.

I'm sorry this may seem super basic, but I'm simply trying to learn how to do this with little background knowledge in the subject.

Thanks!

For more general process output eg

This is working fine:
Else you can even use:
But there should be only one file with .out extension, else you will get error like: