How to remove the newline character at the start in the attachment ?

Question

Hi All,
I have been trying to attach a .dat file generated at an external source and send it as an attachment by mail using UTL_SMTP, all things are working but the .dat file which comes attached in mail contains a newline character i.e. chr(10) at the start line and the contents of the file are written from second line onwards. Below is some part of the code which deals with read/write of attachment of mail to be sent.
Can anyone help me on this, is something to be changed in this code??
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c,
'Subject' || ': ' || P_SUBJECT || UTL_TCP.crlf);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c,
'MIME-Version: 1.0' || UTL_TCP.crlf || -- Use MIME mail standard
'Content-Type: multipart/mixed;' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
' boundary="-----SECBOUND"' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
UTL_TCP.crlf);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c,
'-------SECBOUND' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
'Content-Type: text/plain;' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
'Content-Transfer_Encoding: 7bit' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
UTL_TCP.crlf);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c, UTL_TCP.crlf || l_text);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c, UTL_TCP.crlf);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c, UTL_TCP.crlf);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c,
'-------SECBOUND' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
'Content-Type: text/plain;' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
' name="/inetpub/wwwroot/Novation_Merge/FS_Extract.dat"' ||
UTL_TCP.crlf ||
'Content-Transfer_Encoding: 8bit' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
'Content-Disposition: attachment;' ||UTL_TCP.crlf || ' filename="' || p_description ||
TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'DD-MON-YYYY') || '.dat"' ||
UTL_TCP.crlf || UTL_TCP.crlf ||UTL_TCP.crlf);
BEGIN
l_filehandle := UTL_FILE.fopen('c:\temp',
'FS_Extract.dat',
'r',
32767);
LOOP
UTL_FILE.GET_LINE(l_filehandle, l_buffer, 32767);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c, l_buffer || UTL_TCP.crlf);
END LOOP;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
NULL;
END;
UTL_FILE.fclose(l_filehandle);
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c, '-------SECBOUND--');
UTL_SMTP.close_data(c);
UTL_SMTP.quit(c);
EXCEPTION
WHEN UTL_SMTP.transient_error OR UTL_SMTP.permanent_error THEN
BEGIN
UTL_SMTP.quit(c);
EXCEPTION
WHEN UTL_SMTP.transient_error OR UTL_SMTP.permanent_error THEN
NULL;
-- When the SMTP server is down or unavailable, we don't have
-- a connection to the server. The quit call will raise an
-- exception that we can ignore.
END;
RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR(-20000,
'Failed to send mail due to the following error: ' ||
SQLERRM);
END;
Thanks,
-Amol

Answer 1

As I recall, a single blank line serves as separator between Mime Header and Mime Body.
This code..
UTL_SMTP.write_data(c,
  '-------SECBOUND' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
  'Content-Type: text/plain;' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
  ' name="/inetpub/wwwroot/Novation_Merge/FS_Extract.dat"' ||
  UTL_TCP.crlf ||
  'Content-Transfer_Encoding: 8bit' || UTL_TCP.crlf ||
  'Content-Disposition: attachment;' ||UTL_TCP.crlf || ' filename="' || p_description ||
  TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'DD-MON-YYYY') || '.dat"' ||
  UTL_TCP.crlf || UTL_TCP.crlf ||UTL_TCP.crlf);  ..generates 2 blank lines after the Mime Header.
Remove the last CRLF and see if that does the trick.