SMS to Database

[matthewdingley]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure this can be done, but I don't know how. I want to make a system so that a user can text a certain number, and the content of that SMS text is inserted into a MySQL database. The information in this database would be then outputted elsewhere using PHP.

Does anyone have any idea about what programming this would need and how much it would cost if I was going to run it myself on my own server (SMS costs and things like that).

Thanks

[jayant]

i am also interested.

i tried to use the data cable to try and retrieve something, but no documentation etc. of how to do it etc.

[matthewdingley]

Does anyone have any ideas. I've remembered that the BBC (over here in the UK) uses it quite a bit on radio and tv for text votes, so I guess it must go straight into a database. Does anyone have any experience of this?

Thanks.

[idotcom]

not sure if this helps, but it might..

example using a AT&T cell number
full number: area code, number

$sms = "[e-mail]";
$subject = "SMS Message";

$message = "Text:$your_text\n";
$message .= "Text2:$your_text2\n";
$message .= "Text3:$your_text3\n";

mail("$sms","$subject","$message","From: [e-mail]");

That works. It will send the message to a cell phone. The thing is, every cell phone provider has their own (ie, [e-mail] ) address. You could preset them in a dropdown form field and enter phone number in a text field.

Hope it helps..

oh and doing this does not cost you anything, but usually cell phone owners have some kind of limit to text message character ammount and the number of messages a month.

[matthewdingley]

Hi,
thanks for the help. It's cleared a few other things up, but I really need a way to text a database. Is there anyway the text can be sent to a phone number that the database server is on?

Thanks.

[idotcom]

Im not exactly sure what you mean by:

" I really need a way to text a database."

what do you mean text a database?

"Is there anyway the text can be sent to a phone number that the database server is on?"

To a phone number that the server is on?

Try to explain what you want to do, the best you can.

[matthewdingley]

Hi,
sorry for any confusion. When I say 'text a database', I mean to send a text and the content of that text to be put into a database.
With the phone number, I was thinking that you could send the text to a phoneline that the computer is on? Then could the computer process this and put it into a database?

Thanks.

[jayant]

Originally posted by idotcom
not sure if this helps, but it might..

.....

ammount and the number of messages a month.

this just sends sms to a cell phone using the web. what we want it and the we be able to connect to the cellphone and get those sms into a pc so that they can be inserted into a pc in some db like mysql

Originally posted by matthewdingley
Does anyone have any ideas. I've remembered that the BBC (over here in the UK) uses it quite a bit on radio and tv for text votes, so I guess it must go straight into a database. Does anyone have any experience of this?

BBC etc are biggies, they will be paying heavily for this, i guess, else everyone will be doing it. they will have some setup with the cell phone company i guess.

[matthewdingley]

BBC etc are biggies, they will be paying heavily for this, i guess, else everyone will be doing it. they will have some setup with the cell phone company i guess.

Yeah, that's a good point, but I hope the cost won't matter too much.

I don't know whether you can maybe plug a phone line into a modem and send a text to that phone line. Would the computer get that data and would it be able to put that data into a mySQL database. I suppose this is more of a server question.

Thanks.

[bliss322]

http://www.codesegment.com/

they have a demo available of an sms poll system. just plug your phone into a computer. not saying this is your solution but possibly a reverse-engineer beginning

[matthewdingley]

Thanks for the link. From what I've read there, it seems that you can just plug in a mobile to your computer using a data cable. I suppose it wouldn't cost too much to do that. The main cost would be for the people texting in - it's 10p per text in the UK (about 6 cents in the US but it's probably a bit less as we get ripped off for most things over here).

So I now know that you can plug a mobile in, but does anyone know the programming needed to get the information from the data cable to a (preferably) MySQL database? I'm guessing this is beyond the reach of PHP.

Thanks.

[andymoo]

if you're plugging a sim into a machine you're right about it being beyond php, find a friendly sms supplier tho, add php and you don't need a sim

we have our own sms platform
http://palacemarketing.co.uk

we can send you messages over by http and you can just bung em in a database or play around with em and make em sing n dance.

sms like this doesn't need a sim card anymore, long numbers are becomming virtual and shortcode use commonplace

[osusano]

i dont know if im wrong but we are doing it now here ni our ofc.

we have our own what they call an assigned telco number sample is 2322

when the cellphone user text messages from his/her cellphone it will go directly to the telephone company and look where it will going to dump either send it to the user or just sent it to another server.

so what happening to use is they dump a value in our server with the filename like this SMS_IN_1_20030704145834_0001.DAT and thats the time your program or script will read and parse the DAT file and do what the program or script you have made.

just to make it mor clear

from the SMS it will send SMS_IN_1_20030704145834_0001.DAT and if you going to read the value of that file it is like this

09171234567|20030704145800|20030704145801|2311|cellphone user message.

hope this help.

better to have your own gateway