email address as a link

[macsurfer]

Hellow everyone. I have an autorepsonder system that emails pre-formatted messages to registered users on one of my clients websites. It is a basic PHP script that sends the particular message using hte mail() function. Everything works fine except for the fact that we want the email address contained in the message to be a hyperlink so that all the user has to do is click on it to create a new email to that particular address.

In my function I set a $body variable that contains the message and the email address to inquire more information.

Does anyone know how to make the email address a link?

Thanks in advance.

[Mordecai]

You'll need to use a regular expression. Regular expressions change commonly formatted things into other formats (i.e. an email into a mailto: link).
Try this:
$body = preg_replace("/([\w.]+)(@)([\w.]+)/i", "<a href=\"mailto:$0\">$0</a>", $body);

Things this regex uses:
\w - a word, or something that is alpha-numeric.
/i - case insensitive.

Hope this helps.

[macsurfer]

The email address now looks like this as text (no link): <a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a> I just wanted the email to appear as a link like it does when you simply type out an email to someone.

Thanks.

[Weedpacket]

That's mainly because email is a protocol for transferring text, not hyperlinked stuff.

You'll need to turn the whole email into an HTML page, and add extra headers to tell the mail software that it's an HTML page you're sending (search these forums on the subject of HTML emails; there are hundreds of posts on this subject). Keep in mind that quite a few people don't (can't or won't) read HTML emails. Ask yourself: is it worth the hassle?