[Resolved] Mail() function help

JJ123

I have a page that users can view information on tickets they have logged. I have placed a button at the bottom of the page that the users can click if they want an update. When they click on this button, I want an E-mail to be sent to the administrator notifying that the user wants to be contacted. Can someone tell me why my code isn't working?

Here is my code:

.....
$number = $_REQUEST["ticketnumber"];
$updatereq = $REQUEST["updatereq"];

//Query the table based on the number the user entered.
$query = "SELECT * FROM tblIssues WHERE IssueNumber LIKE '$number'";
$result = mssql_query( $query ) or die ("Query failed");

//Get the number of rows in the resulting query and if it is not equal to zero, print it.
//If it is equal to zero, print a no records message.
$myrows = mssql_num_rows( $result );

if ($myrows == 0)
{
echo "<br><br><center><b>Sorry, no records were found!</b></center>";
}
else
{
?>
<B>Ticket Search</B>
<?PHP
print("<TABLE BORDER='3' CELLSPACING='1' CELLPADDING='2'>");
print("<tr><td>Ticket</td><td>First Name</td><td>Last

Name</td><td>Phone</td><td>E-mail</td><td>Type</td><td>Subject</td><td>Ticket Details</td><td>Date Submitted</td><td>Assigned

To</td></tr>");

for ($i = 0; $i < mssql_num_rows( $result ); ++$i)
	{
	$line = mssql_fetch_row($result);				
	print("<tr>");	
	print( "<td>$line[0] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[1] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[2] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[3] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[4] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[5] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[6] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[7] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[10] </td>");
	print( "<td>$line[11] </td>");
	print("</tr>");
}
print("</TABLE>");
?>
<BR>
<B>Work Log Details</B><BR>

<textarea name="logdetails" rows="20" cols="70" wrap="virtual" onFocus=this.blur()><?php echo $line[13] ?></textarea>
<?PHP
if ($updatereq)
{
$to = "admin@mail.com";
$email_subject = "User Requests Update";
$message = "The user would like an update on ticket $MaxNumber. Contact the user to let them know what is

happening with the ticket.\n\n";
$message .= "Logged by: $firstname $lastname\n\nTime: $time\n\n";
$message .= "Phone: $phone\n\nE-mail: $email\n\n";
$message .= "Subject: $subject\n\n";
$message .= "Description: $comment\n";
$from = "FROM: dbaccount@mail.com";

	mail ($to, $email_subject, $message, $from);

}
}
?>
<INPUT type="submit" name="updatereq" value="Request Update">
</BODY>
</HTML>

leatherback

It seems to me that there is a bunch of <? and ?> tags missing around your email code?

JJ123

Yes I just changed that in the questions. I was playing around with where to put it in the code and didn't realize I hadn't changed it back before cutting and pasting.

With the <? and ?> in the right place, it still does not work.

leatherback

Well, for sure there is a _ missing in :

$updatereq = $REQUEST["updatereq"];

There may be something else happening as well (eg: will $updatereq hold "TRUE" or something else?) but you might want to specify WHAT the page doesn't do, and what sort of errors you get. Are variables passed to the right part of the script?

JJ123

Okay - I put in the underscore. that was a rather stupid mistake. But it is still not working.

What I am trying to capture is the button press on the form. So if a button is pressed, then it is 'True' - right?

I am not getting any errors at all. I click on the button and nothing happens.

all the code is above except the connection part. Here is the first part of the code that I didn't put in:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Ticket Find</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="FFFFFF" BACKGROUND="images\paper5.jpg">
<?PHP
$server = "sqlserver";
$user = "phpuser";
$Password = "password";
$dbname = "niffer";

$conn = mssql_connect($server, $user, $password) or die("Error Occured While Connecting to MSSQL $Server");
$db = mssql_select_db($dbname, $conn) or die("Error Occured While Connecting to Database");

$number = $REQUEST["ticketnumber"];
$updatereq = $REQUEST["updatereq"];

...

leatherback

Hi,

I am absolutely not sure wether the request would work.

BUT
As far as I can tell, this not work:

How can you submit when the button does not know what to submit? Just clicking a button is not doing anything.

So:

Grab the mail code from you current page, parse it into a new file (eg. mail.php)

Add form tags to your current page, with an action (eg. mail.php) and a method (eg POST)

Add to that form a hidden field:

Add everything else you want to be able to use in the mail.php into form items,

then try clicking the submit buttons. If you can't get it to work, show us how far you have come, and we can have a look/help you with getting the code together.

It could be that I am completely missing something here, but ... I don't think this will work this way.

Good luck!

PS: Put your login details in a seperate include file, say login.inc or login.php. That way you will only have to change your details once if you / your provider chances something AND if your code fails, not all your login details are out & open.

JJ123

Okay - that worked!! Thank you so much.

Now can you tell me how to pass the variables to the mail.php script? I need the variables to be in the E-mail.

JJ123

Is it even possible to send variables to an external script?

leatherback

Hi,

In general the idea is:

You have a form, with form fields, as described above. This form has an action, which in your case would be mail.php, and a method, which would be POST.

When you click the submit button, all the data which is filled out in the form, is submitted to the page mail.php, and that page is loaded.
In the page mail.php you can then acces each variable (= the name of the form element!) by calling them: $name = $_POST['name'];

You can then use these variables in the scripts in mail.php.

So if you are creating a <very> basic mailing script you'd get:


if(isset($_POST['submitted'])) // Has this form been submitted? Then process
 {
 // $recipient = $_POST['recipient']; (Lets assume it is a mail to  yourself
 $fromname = $_POST['fromname'];
 $fromemail= $_POST['fromemail'];
 $message = $_POST['message'];

 mail( "mymail@mydomain.com", "Response from website", $message, "from:$fromname<$fromemail>" );

 echo "Thank you for sending the responce";
}
else
{
echo "
<form action=\"mail.php\">
Your name: <input type=\"text\" name=\"fromname\"><br>
Your email: <input type=\"text\" name=\"fromemail\"><br>
Your message: <input type=\"text\" name=\"message\"><br>
<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"submitted\" value=\"1\">
<input type=\"submit\">
</form>
";
}

BTW: This is untested. Let me know how it goes.

JJ123

Well the form only has one form field - 'Enter your e-mail address:'. And the code you have given works great for capturing what the user has entered.

But the other fields on the form are queried and displayed in a table on the form. How do you send something that is already in a variable?

For example, on the form, I have a variable called $MaxNumber that contains a ticket number that I would like to be in the E-mail. So in the mail.php script I have tried this:
$test= $_POST[$MaxNumber];
and it doesn't work.

JJ123

Leatherback,

I actually just found a solution. Can you just confirm that I am doing this right?

I am using this line:

So this gathers the first value in the query which is the ticket number and then in the mail.php I have:

$ticket= $_POST['maxnumber'];

It looks like it is working.

Xoid

Don't forget to use '@' before your POST vars,

e.g.

// using @ allows you to handle the errors yourself, so you can
// minimise the horrible error messages on commercial sites -
// always a put off!

$get_post = @$_POST['something'];

also return a value from mail;

e.g.

$checkmail = @mail();

if(!$checkmail)
{
print "Oops! There was a problem with the mail server";
}
else {
print "Woohoo, Mail was sent";
}

ok so it's only a rudimentary check, but atleast it gives you more of an idea. always important to incorporate some form of error handling even if it is rudimentary!

Hope this helps!

JJ123

That did help - Thanks Xoid!