How to set mail subject using variable and ensure attachment is not included in email body

I have the following shell script fragment. var_name='ZZPCI' for emailadd in cat /tmp/email_list.tmp do subject_text="Subject with Var Name "$var_name subj_text_novar="Subject without Var Name" email_mssge="this is the message with variable name "$var_name echo "$email_mssge"|mailx -a /tmp/my_report.txt -s "$subject_text" "$emailadd" echo "$email_mssge"|mailx -a /tmp/my_report.txt -s "$subj_text_novar" "$emailadd" done What it does is a. Sets the variable var_name b. Reads through the list of email addresses stored in /tmp/email_list.tmp c. Compiles and sends an email with /tmp/my_report.txt (plain text file) as an attachment The script is intended to run on a number of different servers, so var_name will change with each server. The mail command with $subj_text_novar, (does not include $var_name in the subject string), sends the email correctly . However the mail command with $subject_text which does include $var_name places the contents of the attachment into the main body of the email. As far as I can make out, it is the actual $-sign causing the problem because hardcoding the var_name value into the string is fine but I don't see why because surely var_name is just a concatenated string So, how can I set the subject for mail so it includes $var_name and my text file is sent as an attachment? I am running this on SuSE 11.3 but the solution ideally needs to work on AIX 6.1 and HP UX11.31 as well Regards