mail()

otuatail · November 10, 2009

Hi all. I have a problem with emails. I am trying to set up a mail system where customers can subscribe to a news letter . Those who subscribe will receive a monthly email. They can unsubscribe using a link in the email. The website I have created is for a charity in Malawi. What would be cool is if they could send an attachment in the form of a pdf.

The mail() function doesn’t allow for attachments. mail($to,$subject, $message, $headers, $root)

Is there another way to send mail with attachments?

The problem is that I pay a hosting company. I have no physical access to the computer and can’t install any software. Is this still possible or will I have to make do with just text based emailing.

TIA Desmond.

gevans · November 10, 2009

A very easy solution would be a to have a download link in the email. Instead of attaching the pdf and sending a lot of data to a lot of people, just let them download it if they want it.

cags · November 10, 2009

The mail function does allow you to have attachments. If by doesn't you mean it doesn't have a handy parameter you pass in of the filename and it does all the work for you, then you are correct, but it doesn't mean you can't use attachments.

First result in google...

http://www.webcheatsheet.com/php/send_email_text_html_attachment.php

otuatail · November 10, 2009

Hi Thanks I tried this with a pdf file but when I get the email the attachment is Testemail.txt (517.7k)

I can't find Testemail.txt in the code.

<?php
//define the receiver of the email
$to = '[email protected]';
//define the subject of the email
$subject = 'Test email with attachment';
//create a boundary string. It must be unique
//so we use the MD5 algorithm to generate a random hash
$random_hash = md5(date('r', time()));
//define the headers we want passed. Note that they are separated with \r\n
$headers = "From: [email protected]\r\nReply-To: [email protected]";
//add boundary string and mime type specification
$headers .= "\r\nContent-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"PHP-mixed-".$random_hash."\"";
//read the atachment file contents into a string,
//encode it with MIME base64,
//and split it into smaller chunks
$attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode(file_get_contents('August.pdf')));
//define the body of the message.
ob_start(); //Turn on output buffering
?>
--PHP-mixed-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>"

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello World!!!
This is simple text email message.

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<h2>Hello World!</h2>
<p>This is something with <b>HTML</b> formatting.</p>

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>--

--PHP-mixed-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>
Content-Type: application/zip; name="attachment.zip"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment

<?php echo $attachment; ?>
--PHP-mixed-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>--

<?php
//copy current buffer contents into $message variable and delete current output buffer
$message = ob_get_clean();
//send the email
$mail_sent = @mail( $to, $subject, $message, $headers, '[email protected]' );
//if the message is sent successfully print "Mail sent". Otherwise print "Mail failed"
echo $mail_sent ? "Mail sent" : "Mail failed";
?>

and this html?

--PHP-mixed- ??

cags · November 10, 2009

You have set the content type of the attachment to zip and called it attachment.zip, which is obviously not right. Not entirely sure why you got it called testemail.txt, is testemail is the name of your script?

chauffeur · November 10, 2009

can your servers use and allow use of perl or cgi-scripting?

otuatail · November 10, 2009

No. In the example it was a zip file. I changed the attachment to a valid pdf file.

Which is what I was intending the attachments to be. It seems I have to make the changes every where.

can your servers use and allow use of perl or cgi-scripting?

Can I check this out in phpinfo()?

I see

PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) Support enabled

cags · November 10, 2009

Of course you have to change it everywhere, you can't just copy an example and expect it to work when you change the filename, you need to amend mimetypes etc to make it correct for the attachment you wish to use.

otuatail · November 10, 2009

My ptest page is MailAttach.php so wherethe attchment Testemai.txt

comes from ?

cags · November 10, 2009

Looks like it's down to the way your host handless malformed e-mails. I tested your code and the example on the site, changing the mime-types etc and all relevant data. Your code is malformed so you have removed/changed something to break it, the code from the site works fine. You just need to change the mime type in the attachment section to application/pdf, and change the filename.

<?php
//define the receiver of the email
$to = 'your e-mail';
//define the subject of the email
$subject = 'Test email with attachment';
//create a boundary string. It must be unique
//so we use the MD5 algorithm to generate a random hash
$random_hash = md5(date('r', time()));
//define the headers we want passed. Note that they are separated with \r\n
$headers = "From: [email protected]\r\nReply-To: [email protected]";
//add boundary string and mime type specification
$headers .= "\r\nContent-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"PHP-mixed-".$random_hash."\"";
//read the atachment file contents into a string,
//encode it with MIME base64,
//and split it into smaller chunks
$attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode(file_get_contents('example.pdf')));
//define the body of the message.
ob_start(); //Turn on output buffering
?>
--PHP-mixed-<?php echo $random_hash; ?> 
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>"

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello World!!!
This is simple text email message.

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?> 
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<h2>Hello World!</h2>
<p>This is something with <b>HTML</b> formatting.</p>

--PHP-alt-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>--

--PHP-mixed-<?php echo $random_hash; ?> 
Content-Type: application/pdf; name="example.pdf" 
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 
Content-Disposition: attachment 

<?php echo $attachment; ?>
--PHP-mixed-<?php echo $random_hash; ?>--

<?php
//copy current buffer contents into $message variable and delete current output buffer
$message = ob_get_clean();
//send the email
$mail_sent = @mail( $to, $subject, $message, $headers );
//if the message is sent successfully print "Mail sent". Otherwise print "Mail failed"
echo $mail_sent ? "Mail sent" : "Mail failed";
?>

otuatail · November 10, 2009

Mail failed Report to moderator Logged

The only changes I made to your above code is add , '[email protected]'

which fails with or without it. I renamed the pdf file on the server to example.pdf which is the same location as the php file.

Desmond.

cags · November 10, 2009

So did you change the $to address?

otuatail · November 10, 2009

Ok now changed to

$to = '[email protected]';

Result: Mail sent Report to moderator Logged

cags · November 10, 2009

So the mail sent...

otuatail · November 10, 2009

Not exactly. Still have the strange txt attachment. What I get in the body of the email is this.

[Only the first part of this message is displayed. The entire message has been turned into a text attachment, which you can retrieve by clicking the Download button. Once downloaded, open the file with a word processor or text editor and you will be able to read it.]

--PHP-alt-0ba24989b762be816ee84194600a234aContent-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello World!!!

This is simple text email message.

--PHP-alt-0ba24989b762be816ee84194600a234aContent-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello World!

This is something with HTML formatting.

--PHP-alt-0ba24989b762be816ee84194600a234a--

--PHP-mixed-0ba24989b762be816ee84194600a234aContent-Type: application/pdf; name="example.pdf"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

Content-Disposition: attachment

JVBERi0xLjMKJeLjz9MKNSAwIG9iago8PAovTGVuZ3RoIDcyODEKL0ZpbHRlciAvRmxhdGVEZWNv

ZGUKPj4Kc3RyZWFtCnic1V1rr9zGeYYuluQjwYeibcmWc1b0LdljW2tehre4t6QpChT9EkNAPlj9

lDZJC8uF1f8PdGa45DzvcB5yeHaVohaQ7Nkdcobv9XkvM/w5yw9FmeXm3/jhj68vvv2+zf78Pxc/

X6j+0PdNkTV9pQ5Nm72+aJX85kf3TdcWwzfTVdM3f7n4Q/bThZ0m+/6fjx/e/FnP0B0q85/9Aj//

8XX225d6IV3WHJq+zbvs5Z8ucn3fXpWtHVFktfmzrrKubA5lV2QvX1/ss+uX/3XxTy8vfq///ZwV

uRoGK1Vl07JUb5dlH7TIs9/9tx57k7VpghWhdRWaNF2XtV136JRd1g/7W9f5ocz7smn3t83HolXF

/s5d/bHoy74r9++Yb2uV1+X+nvlY1rX+eF9/zKu6K9tu/+D6haZF0VXd/t3rF/rCrm7qav/qJ/NH

WTaVvvdDc8Om0FeLMXDzR/brotL32b96Y25fl/rPcv+eu/2dS3ubvmo6M2b6frpNv0/MiK7rCzr/

w+vm0FVFW8oRw9N3Zan2jwN3LvW6m4Pq9D8c+o7+si9VrWBipE0KM+D378Pc5i7/9vJfLlRzqFTT

ZC/K4tA32ct/1+z5YBhVln29/9AsS+mnb/fvw/OkZl1KFSUOQCLj5+OQrq73d4BqT6wUFH3V4xM/

1Xeuuz5vNA8cPz4ChgTZWuA94OPHdkRZFmr/LPjxE/dxoMiLpjy0PVJE/6D1SIu4ygp1yJWT8qo5

SnnZ6Wv6OmvL/lA3KOZK5YVhtJlF073SNDDPpTRP9IPfNd/nvVKtXbYZ1Be5fsh7192hKc23t6/r

XB2qXpnF6UU0WW/XdVxD1Y1r6KpD187X8MJSsVRlf1xFrTRR9SrMZz1Wr44OuguDhtVVmjO9vODe

QMG8aZUWN/jhwXB11VhBNo/WFn1/1AA9qG87N7f94zhHp42LZrO7+j4OwgWKH+7AFTj3LTYIV36L

TXEXLsD13brWCnLI88oKTV0bO9JnL4r80HSDHj169ebVm/fGGzdF3u0v9YKL8qA/NvskEdRChjyI

Yc54QdEVctDlkdjaKzli21+0vhTFoavbVtsbPUapEohrlEuQ4QF59Mf2Nn3eG9NnnkfbcuXxFcfj

qvEzjrFGK8+1zSlLbWusCao6lXucEX98AKMkw4E1vfY72ct/vXj51Q9Utu8jjxLBMRT7h+ySkEjG

M/XIir5uQkpW1HlbGPIYOtddLcZ8aEyM9iudZaOVrFauGW5+y41w3EfxBiXFJ6KqgRKIevXEfs6V

chauffeur · November 10, 2009

Hold tight mate. I may still have a mail script in Perl that allows attachments and works well. I'll dig it out asap.

Fret not. I'll be back!!

cags · November 10, 2009

The current script works perfectly fine for me...

bossman · November 10, 2009

that tutorial you found in google in 2 seconds on the first page doesnt help much. Can you point us toward a tutorial that shows you how to pass the uploaded image from FORM into an email? that tutorial doesnt help vary much as it doesnt show how to PASS the file into the process page that sends out the actual email. i'm trying to figure out how to send a zip file as well and i cant find any valuable resources online anywhere.

otuatail · November 10, 2009

bossman

that tutorial you found in google in 2 seconds on the first page doesnt help much

Not sure who did this post.

-----------------------

chauffeur

look forward to your Perl code.

--------

I spent some time writing a website in C# (Microsoft.net) a Colleague had to make some alterations on a server to allow difrent file tipes like docx and pdf. I was wondering if some servers do not recognise some types as I think this is what he had to do to the server.

I do think that gevans original idea to put a link in the email is good but dammed am i after going this far with you guys that we don't get this solution

TIA Desmond.

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