Cant get ruby net/smtp to send html code via email

Question

I can't seem to figure out why my html isn't encoded when sending a email using net/smtp ruby. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my class:

class CheckAccounts

  def self.emailPwdExpire(email, name, days,  subject)
    begin
      server = 'x.x.x.x'
      from    = "NetworkAccountMgr"
      to      = "someuser@mydomain.com"
      subject = "Network Account Expiration Notice"
      message = <<-MESSAGE_END
      From: #{from}
      To: #{to}
      Subject: #{subject}
      Mime-Version: 1.0
      Content-Type: text/html
      Content-Disposition: inline

      <b>This is my simple HTML message</b><br /><br />
      It goes on to tell of wonderful things you can do in ruby.
      MESSAGE_END

      Net::SMTP.start(server, 25) do |s|
        s.send_message message, from, 'someuser@mydomain.com'
        s.finish
      end
    rescue [Net::SMTPFatalError, Net::SMTPSyntaxError]
      puts "BAD"
    end
  end

Which gives me this email with no subject and the html is not encoded.

 <b>This is my simple HTML message</b><br /><br />
 It goes on to tell of wonderful things you can do in ruby.

However when I try to not ignore white spaces using <<MESSAGE_END instead of <<-MESSAGE_END I get this :

ldap_callback.rb:148: can't find string "MESSAGE_END" anywhere before EOF
ldap_callback.rb:64: syntax error, unexpected end-of-input, expecting tSTRING_CONTENT or tSTRING_DBEG or tSTRING_DVAR or tSTRING_END
      message = <<MESSAGE_END 

Answer 1

This will solve your problem, I tested:

  message = <<-MESSAGE_END.gsub(/^\s+/,'')
  From: #{from}
  To: #{to}
  Subject: #{subject}
  Mime-Version: 1.0
  Content-Type: text/html
  Content-Disposition: inline

  <b>This is my simple HTML message</b><br /><br />
  It goes on to tell of wonderful things you can do in ruby.
  MESSAGE_END

The issue is with leading empty spaces, we get rid of them with: MESSAGE_END.gsub(/^\\s+/,'')

---

EDIT: That worked well on my email client but as @stefan pointed out it strips empty lines. If you need those empty lines I have three options:

1. MESSAGE_END.gsub(/^ {6}/,'') # That works but you would have to update in case indentation changes.
2. MESSAGE_END.lines.map{|l| l.gsub(/^\\s+([^$])/,'\\1')}.join MESSAGE_END.lines.map{|l| l.gsub(/^\\s+([^$])/,'\\1')}.join # That works despite of indentation changes, but we kinda sacrifice readability.
3. MESSAGE_END.gsub(/^[ ]+/,'') # That was suggested by @stefan and probably reads better.