Mailing all users in database?

[darthmahon]

Hi there,

Now I know how you would go about emailing individual people, but I am a bit stuck on how I would email a large number of people at once.

What I want to do is creating an online form, with two fields:

1) Subject
2) Message

Once the user fills those it, it will then send that Subject and Message to all of the registered users.

This is the code as it stands now for sending the email and selecting the email addresses from the database:

<?php 

$landps = array("mydatabase", "localhost", "myusername", "mypassword");
$database	= $landps[0];
$host		= $landps[1];
$username	= $landps[2];
$password	= $landps[3];
$table	= 'distributors';

$result	= mysql_query("SELECT email FROM distributors");

$Subject	= trim ($Subject);
$Message	= trim ($Message);
$URL        = 'http://www.myurl.net/admin/';

mysql_connect ($host,$username,$password) or die ("Failed login.");
mysql_select_db ($database) or die ("Failed to access db.");

$Message	= addslashes ($Message);

$headers  = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
$headers .= "From: $From <$Return>\r\n";

mail ("$result", "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);

header("Location: $URL");

?>

The table which has the information is called "distributors" and the field with all the email addresses is called "email".

Anyone got any ideas why this is not working?

Regards,
Chris

[bart]

Try replacing

mail ("$result", "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);

with

while ($query_data = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
mail ("$result", "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);
}

[darthmahon]

Doing it your suggested way came up with errors. So I reverted back to my original way...

It seems to do something, but I don't think it sends the emails to the addresses in the table...am I performing the right commands to select the email addresses??

Also am I telling the form to send the Subject and Message to the addresses in the table correctly?

Any ideas?

[bart]

What errors did it produce? I didn't really check my code.

If it states that

mysql_fetch_array

is not a valid MySQL function (or something like that) replace it with

@mysql_fetch_array

Your code looks ok for getting the addresses

[darthmahon]

Yea it was getting those errors...just put in the @ and I received no errors...

It still doesn't seem to be sending any emails tho...I haven't received any...

How does PHP know that it needs to send $Subject, $Message and $headers to $result?

That seems to be the problem but I am clueless as to why it will not send any mails...

[winterbeef]

Hello,

I would connect() & select_db before doing a query().

Also,

$result = mysql_query("SELECT email FROM distributors");
while ($row= mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
mail ($row['email'], "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);
}

$result is the result set, a bunch of rows.
$row is a single row from $result, one after another.
$row['email'] is the column 'email' from the current $row

Note that even though your result set's rows have only one column, $row IS NOT the same as $row['email']

(you could also refer to $row['email'] as $row[0])

HTH

[bart]

I agree with the query, I was going to mention that but didn't know if it mattered.

Also, my initial script was wrong, sorry...

Shoud be

while ($query_data = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$recipient = $row['email'];

mail ("$result", "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);

}

I think that would work, but then so would the previous example by  darthmahon.

[darthmahon]

Hmmm still not sending anything...

This is the code for the HTML side of things:

<form method="POST" action="maildatabase.php">
    <p><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Subject <br>
    </font> 
      <input type="input" name="Subject" size="20" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"><br>
    <br>
    <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Message </font>
    <br>
    <textarea rows="8" name="Message" cols="62" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694"></textarea><br><br>
      <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Process" style="border: 1px solid #0B4694">
    </p>
</form>

And this is the code as it stands for maildatabase.php:

<?php

$landps = array("mydatabase", "localhost", "myuser", "mypass");
$database	= $landps[0];
$host		= $landps[1];
$username	= $landps[2];
$password	= $landps[3];
$table	= 'distributors';

$Subject	= trim ($Subject);
$Message	= trim ($Message);
$URL        = 'myurl';

mysql_connect ($host,$username,$password) or die ("Failed login.");
mysql_select_db ($database) or die ("Failed to access db.");

$Message	= addslashes ($Message);

$headers  = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
$headers .= "From: $From <$Return>\r\n";

$result = mysql_query("SELECT email FROM distributors"); 
while ($row= mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
{ 
mail ($row['email'], "$Subject", "$Message", $headers); 
} 

header("Location: $URL");

?>

It's either the PHP or the HTML...blimin annoying tho! =/

Thanks so far for the effort guys!

[winterbeef]

Bart,

I think you are off by a hair's breadth:

Originally posted by bart
I agree with the query, I was going to mention that but didn't know if it mattered.

Also, my initial script was wrong, sorry...

Shoud be

while ($query_data = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$recipient = $row['email'];

mail ("$result", "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);

}

I think that would work, but then so would the previous example by  darthmahon. [/B][/QUOTE]


$recipient = $row['email'];
mail ("$result", "$Subject", "$Message", $headers);

should be:

$recipient = $row['email'];
mail ($recipient, $Subject, $Message, $headers);

BTW, you can double quote $Subject, etc., but it is not necessary, and you are forcing the PHP interpreter to do variable interpolation when it's not necessary.

HTH

[darthmahon]

Ok so is this meant to be the final code?

<?php

$landps = array("mydatabase", "localhost", "myuser", "mypass");
$database	= $landps[0];
$host		= $landps[1];
$username	= $landps[2];
$password	= $landps[3];
$table	= 'distributors';

$Subject	= trim ($Subject);
$Message	= trim ($Message);
$URL        = 'myURL';

mysql_connect ($host,$username,$password) or die ("Failed login.");
mysql_select_db ($database) or die ("Failed to access db.");

$Message	= addslashes ($Message);

$headers  = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
$headers .= "From: $From <$Return>\r\n";

$result = mysql_query("SELECT email FROM distributors"); 
while ($query_data = mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
{ 
$recipient = $row['email'];
mail ($recipient, $Subject, $Message, $headers);
}

header("Location: $URL");

?>

[jerdo]

Just a quick note on one of bart's posts putting the @ in from of mysql_fetch_array doesn't solve the error that the command is creating it simply hides the output of the error so if there is an error in the code it's still there just not being printed out.

[winterbeef]

Hello,

Ok so is this meant to be the final code?
....

Looks good to me. You are putting the db,host,user & pass into an array, then pulling them out again -- it's valid, but I don't know why you are doing that.

In the same vein:

$recipient = $row['email'];
mail ($recipient, $Subject, $Message, $headers);

could be one line:

mail ($row['email'], $Subject, $Message, $headers);

Stylistic nitpickiness maybe, but I shy away from creating new variables when I don't need to, unless that makes the code a lot easier to understand.

My $.02

[darthmahon]

Bah, still not working =/

Funny thing is, now and then it sends one email...but to only one address...I have two in there so far...

It's obviously to do with the coding but what exactly?