#!/usr/bin/env python

import os

def sendmail(send_to, send_from, subject, body):
    """
    form response string in the form of a sendmail session and pipe it to sendmail
    #TODO: consider using smtplib or similar mailing library here
    #http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-smtplib.html

    @rtype: int
    @returns exit status of mail process
    """
    MAIL = "/usr/sbin/sendmail"

    response = "To: " + str(send_to) + \
               "\nFrom: " + str(send_from) + \
               "\nSubject: "+ str(subject) + \
               "\n\n" + str(body) + "\n"
    p = os.popen("%s -t" % MAIL, 'w')
    p.write(response)
    exitcode = p.close()
    if exitcode == None:
        """
        From the docs:

        The exit status of the command (encoded in the
        format specified for wait()) is available as the return value of
        the close() method of the file object, except that when the exit
        status is zero (termination without errors), None is returned.

        http://docs.python.org/lib/os-newstreams.html
        """
        return 0
    else:
        return exitcode