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D
dtwineham
Participant
December 3, 2013
Question

Cfmail is inserting a blank space in front of my email body

  • December 3, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 1790 views

When I send a text formatted email using CFMail, Coldfusion 10, I am seeing an extra blank space at the beginning of the message body.  When I capture the .cfmail file from my spool directory, it looks like this in part:

bcc:  dale@realgo.com

replyto:  dale@realgo.com

subject:  2 listings

X-Mailer:  ColdFusion 10 Application Server

List-Unsubscribe:  <http://overlord.dev.realgo.com/go/B3ANTR4IHSUB>

X-Receiver:  dale@realgo.com,dale@realgo.com

MIME-Version:  1.0

Content-Transfer-Encoding:  7bit

body:   $Prospective Buyer,

body: 

body:  RealGo, Inc.

body: 

body: 

body:  For a detailed view of these listings including all photos, visit this link

body: 

body:  Residential-Detached Listings

body: 

body:  SRC   MLS #  PRICE $       BD   BA   SQFT  LOCALE                   STAT ADDRESS

body:  IRES  722659 LP900,000     3    3    1948  Boulder                  A    593 Lee Hill Dr

body:  ------------------------Total Residential-Detached Listings: 1

Note that there are 2 spaces between "body:" and the text for that line, but on the first line there are 3 spaces.

The "$" is on that line as a check to make sure my message body didn't itself have the extra space, it was generated by

<cfset EmailBody = "$#EmailBody#">

My cfmail is coded as follows:

<cfmail

    to = "#Attributes.To#"

    from = "#Attributes.From#"

    cc = "#Attributes.CC#"

    bcc = "#Attributes.BCC#"

    replyTo = "#Attributes.Reply_To#"

    subject = "#Attributes.Subject#"

    type = "text"

    charset="us-ascii">

    <cfif "#Attributes.EmailUnsubscribeLink#" NEQ "">

        <cfmailparam name="List-Unsubscribe" value ="<#Attributes.EmailUnsubscribeLink#>">

    </cfif>

    <cfmailparam name="X-Receiver" value="#xReceivers#">

    <cfmailparam name="MIME-Version" value="1.0">

    <cfmailparam name="Content-Transfer-Encoding" value="7bit">

    #EmailBody#

</cfmail>

I have tried this with all the whitespace collapsed, to no effect.  Any ideas on what might be causing this extra space to appear?

Thanks,

dtwineham

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    D
    duncancumming
    Participating Frequently
    December 4, 2013

    This article might help you:

    http://duncan99.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/cfmail-whitespace-trick/

    In short this might strip out that leading whitespace for you:

    <cfmail

        to = "#Attributes.To#"

        from = "#Attributes.From#"

        cc = "#Attributes.CC#"

        bcc = "#Attributes.BCC#"

        replyTo = "#Attributes.Reply_To#"

        subject = "#Attributes.Subject#"

        type = "text"

        charset="us-ascii">

        <cfif "#Attributes.EmailUnsubscribeLink#" NEQ "">

            <cfmailparam name="List-Unsubscribe" value ="<#Attributes.EmailUnsubscribeLink#>">

        </cfif>

        <cfmailparam name="X-Receiver" value="#xReceivers#">

        <cfmailparam name="MIME-Version" value="1.0">

        <cfmailparam name="Content-Transfer-Encoding" value="7bit">

        #Chr(0)##EmailBody##Chr(13)#

    </cfmail>

    D
    dtwinehamAuthor
    Participant
    December 4, 2013

    Thanks, Duncan.

    I had seen and tried that trick but no luck.  It appears that if the body of the email is a string literal or even just starts with one (or from your example, includes one between variables), it preserves any whitespace you might have put in for code formatting.  But if the only thing in the body is a variable name, only the value of that variable is inserted, none of the preceeding whitespace. So

         #Chr(0)#Hello World#Chr(13)#

    would be useful for eliminating the leading whitespace, but

         #Chr(0)##variableName##Chr(13)#

    doesn't have any effect because the leading whitespace was not included in the first place.

    S
    Steve Sommers
    Legend
    December 3, 2013

    If your code is exactly as shown above, the issue is your code/tag formatting. Notice there is at least one space before the #EmailBody#. I'm kind of surprised you don't also have an extra CR/LF as well. For kicks, try removing the CR/LF and all whitespace from the end of the last tag and the emailBody:

        <cfmailparam name="Content-Transfer-Encoding" value="7bit">#EmailBody#

    Dealing with whitspace is a royal pain.

    D
    dtwinehamAuthor
    Participant
    December 3, 2013

    Steve, thanks for the quick response.

    I have tried that, even putting that whole code segment on a single line with no spaces outside of a tag. .  It turns out that if you put a literal string in for the message body, it does include any leading white space.  But if all that ColdFusion encounters is a variable, you can have any number of spaces there and only the text in your variable comes out.  (Except for my phantom 1 leading space).

    S
    Steve Sommers
    Legend
    December 3, 2013

    While ugly, I'm certain the following will work:

    <cfmail

    to = "#Attributes.To#"

    from = "#Attributes.From#"

    cc = "#Attributes.CC#"

    bcc = "#Attributes.BCC#"

    replyTo = "#Attributes.Reply_To#"

    subject = "#Attributes.Subject#"

    type = "text"

    charset="us-ascii"><cfif "#Attributes.EmailUnsubscribeLink#" NEQ ""><cfmailparam name="List-Unsubscribe" value ="<#Attributes.EmailUnsubscribeLink#>"></cfif><cfmailparam name="X-Receiver" value="#xReceivers#"><cfmailparam name="MIME-Version" value="1.0"><cfmailparam name="Content-Transfer-Encoding" value="7bit">#Trim(EmailBody)#</cfmail>

    I've had problems in the past where the cfif tag leaves whitespace behind when the conditional logic evaluates as false. Placing the entire tag through the close tag seems to correct it.

    Also notice that I wrapped EmailBody with a Trim().

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