error checking inside mail() email body

[mwdavis23]

Is there any way to use php error checking inside an e-mail message body that is sent using mail()? I have a form that has many checkbox options, and I want to check inside the mail body if the variable being passed is blank or if there really is some data in it...if it is not blank, include it in the e-mail, and if it is blank, don't print anything.

[keith73]

before you even call mail() you have to check that the necessary fields are filled in.

isset($POST['fieldname']) will check to see if the user entered information in a field. BUT, because the user could have just hit the space bar in a text box, you could check it using this:

if($strlen(trim($_POST['fieldname'])) < 1){
//...error handling in here
}

What I usually do is create a variable called $mailmsg and initialize it to nothing. Then when I check for fields, I append the field to the var, thus creating the message body string.

$mailmsg = "";
if($strlen(trim($_POST['fieldname'])) > 0){
$mailmsg .= $_POST['fieldname']);
}

then when you call mail, pass $mailmsg as the body of the email.

mail($toemail,$fromemail,$mailmsg);

• keith