am running linux (mandrake) and need to setup a script to send a test email every hour using cron. Cron is not my problem, the mail command is. I tried this:

mail "name@domain.com" -s "test email"

at this point I want "`date`" to be the body of the email and then send. But I can't get it to without manually doing `date` and the "Enter" and the "Control-D" and then go through the "Cc" of which I don't even want.

I am sure this is fairly simple but I am new to Linux and not up to speed on all the command switches, etc.

Thanks for any help.

Here is the solution:

date | mail username@whereever.com -s "This works"

Hope this helps.

Thanks ghoughto! Short, sweet, simple......and it works. I'll add it to cron. I didn't realize you could pipe something into the mail command.

Thanks,
Chris