Perl Requires Chilkat v9.5.0.91+

Using Replace Patterns in Email

See more Email Object Examples

Demonstrates how to use the replace patterns (mail-merge) feature in Chilkat MailMan. Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
# See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create an email template for sending.
my $emailTemplate = Chilkat2::Email->new;

# We're going to replace "FIRST_NAME" with an actual name.
# We arbitrarily chose "FIRST_NAME".  We can choose anything, such as "CUSTOMER_NAME" or "THE_RECIPIENT_NAME"...
$emailTemplate->Subject('Hello FIRST_NAME,');

$emailTemplate->From('john@example.com');
$emailTemplate->AddTo('FIRST_NAME', 'RECIPIENT_EMAIL');

$emailTemplate->SetHtmlBody('<html><body><h2>Hello FIRST_NAME,</h2><p>Your order for PRODUCT_NAME has been shipped.</p></body></html>');

# If the email is saved to a file, we can see what it contains:
$emailTemplate->SaveEml('qa_output/emailTemplate.eml');

# For example:

# MIME-Version: 1.0
# Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 07:10:52 -0500
# Message-ID: <715CF231A9F07B0B9FDB073518CD94138D791866@XYZ>
# Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
# Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
# X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
# Subject: Hello FIRST_NAME,
# From: john@example.com
# To: FIRST_NAME <RECIPIENT_EMAIL>
#
# <html><body><h2>Hello FIRST_NAME,</h2><p>Your order for PRODUCT_NAME has been shipped.</p></body></html>

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Demonstrate replace patterns by setting and then rendering to MIME.

my $mailman = Chilkat2::MailMan->new;

$emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('FIRST_NAME', 'Elon');
$emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('RECIPIENT_EMAIL', 'elon.musk@example.com');
$emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('PRODUCT_NAME', 'Twitter Corporation');

# Render to MIME to see what we get.
# Note: When the MailMan sends an email, it renders the email to MIME and then sends.
# The rendering process is to do replacements, or possibly sign, encrypt, etc.
# When MailMan.SendEmail is called, internally the email is rendered, and the rendered email is sent.
# The equivalent to MailMan.Send email is to call email.RenderToMime followed by MailMan.SendMime.
my $mime = $mailman->RenderToMime($emailTemplate);
print $mime, "\n";

# This is the rendered MIME:

# MIME-Version: 1.0
# Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 07:25:49 -0500
# Message-ID: <750582BCDC891C67B48CEE2293C08B902C3891E9@XYZ>
# Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
# Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
# X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
# Subject: Hello Elon,
# From: john@example.com
# To: Elon <elon.musk@example.com>
#
# <html><body><h2>Hello Elon,</h2><p>Your order for Twitter Corporation has been shipped.</p></body></html>

# Note: When rendering, the Date and Message-ID headers are automatically regenerated.

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------
# An application can see what replacement patterns it previously set by calling SetReplacePattern multiple times.
my $count = $emailTemplate->NumReplacePatterns;
print 'Number of replace patterns: ', $count, "\n";

my $i = 0;
while ($i < $count) {
    print $emailTemplate->GetReplacePattern($i), ': ', $emailTemplate->GetReplaceString($i), "\n";
    $i = $i + 1;
}

# Or lookup a replacement pattern by name:
my $name = 'FIRST_NAME';
print $name, ' = ', $emailTemplate->GetReplaceString2($name), "\n";

# Sample output:

# Number of replace patterns: 3
# FIRST_NAME: Elon
# RECIPIENT_EMAIL: elon.musk@example.com
# PRODUCT_NAME: Twitter Corporation
# FIRST_NAME = Elon

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Finally... demonstrate sending emails using the replacement patterns.
#

# Set our mail server settings..
$mailman->SmtpHost('smtp.mail.us-west-2.awsapps.com');
$mailman->SmtpSsl(1);
$mailman->SmtpPort(465);

$mailman->SmtpUsername('john@example.com');
$mailman->SmtpPassword('the_password');

# Imagine we have data in JSON format, and we wish to send the templated email to each recipient...
#

# {
#     "mail_merge" : [
#         {
#             "to": "mary@example.com",
#             "name": "Mary",
#             "product": "Widget 1"
#         },
#         {
#             "to": "robert@example.com",
#             "name": "Robert",
#             "product": "Widget 2"
#         }
#         ...
#     ]
# }

my $json = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;
my $success = $json->LoadFile('qa_data/json/mail_merge.json');
if (!$success) {
    print $json->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

my $emailAddr = '';
my $firstName = '';
my $product = '';

$i = 0;
$count = $json->SizeOfArray('mail_merge');
while ($i < $count) {
    $json->I($i);
    $emailAddr = $json->StringOf('mail_merge[i].to');
    $firstName = $json->StringOf('mail_merge[i].name');
    $product = $json->StringOf('mail_merge[i].product');

    $emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('FIRST_NAME', $firstName);
    $emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('RECIPIENT_EMAIL', $emailAddr);
    $emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('PRODUCT_NAME', $product);

    $success = $mailman->SendEmail($emailTemplate);
    if (!$success) {
        print $mailman->LastErrorText, "\n";
        exit;
    }

    print 'Send email to ', $emailAddr, "\n";

    $i = $i + 1;
}

print "Success.\n";