R – .NET client vs. ActiveX (or another approach?)

Be sure to use System.Net.Mail, not the deprecated System.Web.Mail. Doing SSL with System.Web.Mail is a gross mess of hacky extensions.

using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;

var fromAddress = new MailAddress("from@gmail.com", "From Name");
var toAddress = new MailAddress("to@example.com", "To Name");
const string fromPassword = "fromPassword";
const string subject = "Subject";
const string body = "Body";

var smtp = new SmtpClient
{
    Host = "smtp.gmail.com",
    Port = 587,
    EnableSsl = true,
    DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.Network,
    UseDefaultCredentials = false,
    Credentials = new NetworkCredential(fromAddress.Address, fromPassword)
};
using (var message = new MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress)
{
    Subject = subject,
    Body = body
})
{
    smtp.Send(message);
}

Additionally go to the Google Account > Security page and look at the Signing in to Google > 2-Step Verification setting.

• If it is enabled, then you have to generate a password allowing .NET to bypass the 2-Step Verification. To do this, click on Signing in to Google > App passwords, select app = Mail, and device = Windows Computer, and finally generate the password. Use the generated password in the fromPassword constant instead of your standard Gmail password.
• If it is disabled, then you have to turn on Less secure app access, which is not recommended! So better enable the 2-Step verification.

For you to output foo {1, 2, 3} you have to do something like:

string t = "1, 2, 3";
string v = String.Format(" foo {{{0}}}", t);

To output a { you use {{ and to output a } you use }}.

Or now, you can also use C# string interpolation like this (a feature available in C# 6.0)

Escaping brackets: String interpolation $(""). It is new feature in C# 6.0.

var inVal = "1, 2, 3";
var outVal = $" foo {{{inVal}}}";
// The output will be:  foo {1, 2, 3}