Basic Advice On How To Send Email Via Php

Xyth · September 29, 2012

Hello,

I posted a topic herebut is not getting much response so am posting a similar question here instead...

Basically, I have essentially no experience with or knowledge about PHP - that said I am trying to create a simple form which, when uploaded to a website I am designing, will send an email to me with the contents of the form.

Shouldn't be too difficult right? I am currently working the best I can from various pieces of example code I've found online.

I have come up with 2 files - form.php and senddetails.php, the code of which I have below:

<html></html><form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" action="senddetails.php">
<div style="text-align: center">
<input type="hidden" name="required_vars" id="required_vars" value="name,email">
</div>

<table cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" border="0" align="center">
<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Your Name:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="name" id="name" size="40" value="">

</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Address line 1:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="address1" id="address1" size="40" value="">

</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Address line 2:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="address2" id="address2" size="40" value="">
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Town:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="town" id="town" size="40" value="">

</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>County or State:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="countystate" id="countystate" size="40" value="">
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Postcode:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="postcode" id="postcode" size="40" value="">
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Message:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<textarea name="persmes" id="persmes" rows="6" cols="40"></textarea>
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td valign="top" style="text-align: center">
<strong>Your email address:</strong>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<input type="text" name="email" id="email" size="40" value="">
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align: center">
<input type="submit" value=" Submit Form ">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form></HTML>

<?php
$ToEmail = 'postmaster@localhost';
$EmailSubject = 'Details';
$mailheader = "From: ".$_POST["email"]."\r\n";
$mailheader .= "Reply-To: ".$_POST["email"]."\r\n";
$mailheader .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Name: ".$_POST["name"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Address Line 1: ".$_POST["address1"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Address Line 2: ".$_POST["address2"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Town name: ".$_POST["town"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "County/state: ".$_POST["countystate"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Postcode: ".$_POST["postcode"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Message: ".$_POST["persmes"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY .= "Email: ".$_POST["email"]."";
mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader) or die ("Failure");
?>

OK, so the code above should work right?? Is there anything obvious wrong with it?

I have been trying to test it out using XAMPP and Thunderbird to send an email to myself locally but am starting to realise this may not be possible. Would it be a simpler test just to upload it a suitable domain? Or, can I just test it out with a gmail account, for example?

If anyone can point me in the direction of any help with setting up Mercury, or perhaps just explain it to me in simple terms, that would be very much appreciated.

I realise this question extends a little outside the scope of PHP coding alone but nonetheless I hope some of you will have enough experience doing what I'm trying to do to help me out.

One final question also - is there a simple way to redirect the user to another page confirming that their details have been sent? I'm guessing this is probably much simpler to answer than the above questions.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Xyth

berridgeab · September 29, 2012

Testing locally requires a mailserver setting up which is out of the scope of this post, though there are examples online.

I find it a pain to setup correctly so instead I test emails on my live production server.

I can't see any problems with the above code so it should work ok.

berridgeab · September 29, 2012

One final question also - is there a simple way to redirect the user to another page confirming that their details have been sent? I'm guessing this is probably much simpler to answer than the above questions

Sure you can do a redirect by

$ToEmail = 'postmaster@localhost';
$EmailSubject = 'Details';
$mailheader = "From: ".$_POST["email"]."\r\n";
$mailheader .= "Reply-To: ".$_POST["email"]."\r\n";
$mailheader .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Name: ".$_POST["name"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Address Line 1: ".$_POST["address1"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Address Line 2: ".$_POST["address2"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Town name: ".$_POST["town"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "County/state: ".$_POST["countystate"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Postcode: ".$_POST["postcode"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY = "Message: ".$_POST["persmes"]."";
$MESSAGE_BODY .= "Email: ".$_POST["email"]."";
if(mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader))
{
header("Location: replaceWithFilename.php");
}

Alternatively you could just keep the success / fail msg in the same page.

if(mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader))
{
  echo "Success";
}
else
{
  echo "Failure";
}

Edited September 29, 2012 by berridgeab

Xyth · September 29, 2012

Thanks for the response! Actually I seem to have managed to set up a local mail server after much headache - I am using XAMPP and ArGosoft Mail Server, and having configured Mozilla Thunderbird with my postmaster@localhost account, I seem to be able to send an email to myself, which I wasn't able to before, so I assume this means it is working...

However, my form still doesn't seem to do anything. I click on Submit Form and just get a blank page thrown up at me, with no email message in my inbox... is there anything else I could be missing here?

Xyth · September 29, 2012

FWIW I think I have configured both php.ini and sendmail.ini properly...

In php.ini, I have set:

SMTP = localhost

smtp_port = 25

...and in sendmail.ini:

smtp_server=localhost

smtp_port=25

auth_username=postmaster

auth_password=mypassword

hostname=localhost

I don't think I've made any other changes.

Also, I must confess that since, as I said, I've basically been working from example code I've found online, I'm not entirely sure what this

mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader) or die ("Failure");
?>

or this

if(mail($ToEmail, $EmailSubject, $MESSAGE_BODY, $mailheader))
{
echo "Success";
}
else
{
echo "Failure";
}

...is supposed to do. Am I supposed to be getting some sort of confirmation message on screen when I press "Submit"? Because as I said, I'm not getting anything, although senddetails.php seems to be loading, all I see is a blank page.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Xyth

Jessica · September 29, 2012

senddetails.php doesn't output anything. If you've added that if/else block, it should. If you see nothing then, you need to enable error reporting.

Xyth · September 29, 2012

Ah OK I see. Simple enough. Nonetheless it is still reporting success but I am not getting any mail in my localhost inbox...

Jessica · September 29, 2012

If you send mail to that address from an outside address does it arrive?

Xyth · September 29, 2012

Surely it wouldn't be possible to send mail to postmaster@localhost from anywhere other than the host server...?

I can send an email to myself (ie, postmaster@localhost) through the same account, and receive it in my inbox...

berridgeab · September 29, 2012

Tbh it sounds like a problem with the configaration of your local mailserver. As I said its a pain to configure and get working properly locally. It should work live if you upload to your production server.

Jessica · September 30, 2012

Yeah I agree you should just try it on a live server.

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Basic Advice On How To Send Email Via Php

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