Updating an email message on the fly? (HELP)

Hello, I've run into a bit of a problem. I have
a MySQL database with a specific email message in
it. In another part of my database I have a list
of opt-in email addresses and first names.

What I would like to do is personalize my message
with the first name of each of the email addresses
the message goes to where I have a <firstname>
saved within the message.

Is there an easy way to do this in my existing CGI
code? Right now I just set the pointer to the
current record, send the message to that record
and advance to the next, etc...

All this is done using:

print MAIL "$message\n\n\n";

Thank you!

It looks like you're using Perl. Once you have your message, just query out the names you want to add and loop through them. You'll want one variable that holds the original message and doesn't get modified. Then in your loop you'll say something like:

...
while (($fname) = $sth->fetchrow_array)
{
$msg_tmp = $message;
$msg_tmp =~ s/\<firstname\>/$fname/;
print MAIL "$msg_tmp\n\n";
}
...