PHP Variables & Templates

[Anon]

Hi,

I am currently writing a mail simple mail program which will include a mail-merge facility. I had the vision of storing the templates in a database table. The content would look something like this:

Dear $name,

Please find enclosed etc etc

Thank you,
$mailcreator.

What I want to do, is pump the recipient information and authors name into the template from the database, put it into a variable, and mail it to a mailing list. The mailing list is not a problem. It's the mail-merge bit that's a problem. I just displays the variable name as it appears in the database 🙁

Any help appreciated,
Jason

[Anon]

will this help?

-example-
Dear <?=$name?>,

Please find enclosed etc etc

Thank you,
<?=$mailcreator?>.
-/example-

<?=$var?> is the same as <? echo $var ?>
Another example is:

-example2-
echo 'Dear '.$name.',

Please find enclosed etc etc

Thank you,
'.$mailcreator.'.';
-/example2-

[Anon]

How about...

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.eval.php

That should do what you're looking for..

vex /Rock-Ngihts.com

[[deleted]]

Thanks,

I already tried that but it didn't work unfortunately. Thanks anyway. I've tried another way though that seems to work.

Dear #firstname#,

Please find enclosed etc etc

Thank you,
#mailcreator#

Then I did:
$message = ereg_replace("#firstname#",$firstname,$content);
$message = ereg_replace("#mailcreator#",$author,$message);

This seems to work great!
Any easier ways out there??
Jason

[amcgrath]

Aren't you just looping through a list of emails and sending an email? if so:

$sql = "select email from somehwere";
$res = pg_exec($conn,$query);
$subject = "Mail Spam Bomb";
$tick = 0;

while($row = @each($res,$tick++)) {

mail("$row[email]","$subject","
PLease find find enclosed......

Thank you
$sender_name
""From:$sender_email");

}

[[deleted]]

Only thing is that the WHOLE email message filled with variables comes from the database. When I out put it to the screen or send it via e-mail, i'm literally getting back the variable name displayed on screen and not the value that I assigned to the variable

[amcgrath]

make sure that the text is being parsed by php, my example would work fine, or past the exact code you are doing...

[[deleted]]

No need to post the code. It's simple really. In the database I have a line which reads "Dear $firstname,".

Then in the actual page something like this:

<?php
$mailquery = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM blah blah");
$mail = mysql_fetch_array($mailquery);
$firstname = "bob";
echo $mail['content'];
?>

This outputs:

Dear $firstname,

And not:

Dear bob,

???!!!!?!?!??!

[[deleted]]

No need to post the code. It's simple really. In the database I have a line which reads "Dear $firstname,".

Then in the actual page something like this:

<?php
$mailquery = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM blah blah");
$mail = mysql_fetch_array($mailquery);
$firstname = "bob";
echo $mail['content'];
?>

This outputs:

Dear $firstname,

And not:

Dear bob,

???!!!!?!?!??!

[amcgrath]

You mean to tell me you actually have $firstname in the database??? God, there's ya problem...remove em, and reference $firstname in the code ($firstname in the db is a string....)

[[deleted]]

:-)) I would do that but I don't want to go through the whole thing and put ".$variable." etc. Hmmm, imagine that I've got a piece of paper with holes where I want the variables filled in. Then I put it through a slot and all the variables are filled automatically by setting them beforehand. There must be a way. The only way that's working so far is the ereg_replace() on things like #firstname# and #lastname# throughout the code.

[Anon]

The eval function can be a pain to use...

Try this..

<?PHP
$testing = 'hello $name, this is a $test';

$name = "Fred";
$test = "banana";

eval( '$result = "'.$testing.'";');

echo $result;
?>

I believe that's what you want?

Vex /Rock-Nights.com