[Resolved] newsletter question

[helz]

i have a newsletter script but im wondering whats best to do...

at first i had each email taking up one row so that when the user clicks the button to email it gets the emails from db adds a space and comma between them and then uses that string as the $to part in the mail function, but at 4 emails this was slow..

so i was advised to change it so that all emails are in one row. which should be faster..

before when it was slow i had it looping to get all the emails during the mail thing. would it be wise to get all the emails before the user click mail? or to be able to load all the emails into the server's cache (if possible) so that its faster especially with alot of emails...

[steadyguy]

What was the query you were using? I have not had any speed issues doing the very same loop thing with many more than 4 addresses in the result set ... but a SELECT * ... query can get slow quickly. SELECTing only the email field should speed things up a bit.

[helz]

i can understand that, but the table only contains the 1 field. so even though:
SELECT *
and
SELECT email
are the 'same'
it might speed it up?

heres what ive got it as now: (subscribe (insert) part)

$exist = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $tablename");
$total = mysql_result(mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(email) FROM $tablename"),0);
$exist = mysql_fetch_array($exist);  

$existingemail = $exist['email'];
	if ($total==0) {
		$newemail = $_POST['email'];
		$update = mysql_query("INSERT INTO $tablename (email) VALUES ('$newemail') ");
	} else {
		$newemail = $existingemail.', '.$_POST['email'];
		$update = mysql_query("UPDATE $tablename SET email='$newemail' ");
	}

Also is there anyway to 'mask' the emails? so that in the emails sent out that the recipitents cannot view the emails?

[goa103]

Hi,

Weird that such a simple task can slow down your web server...

$total = mysql_result(mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(email) FROM $tablename"),0);

Simply use mysql_num_rows to get the number of rows returned by your last query : $exist = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $tablename");

$exist = mysql_fetch_array($exist);

???
Check out the manual to know more about that function, you need to use it in a loop, like a while :

while ($email = mysql_fetch_array($exist))

Moreover what do you mean by "exist" ? I think a name like "emails" would be much more explicit.

$existingemail = $exist['email'];

You shoud directly use the $exist variable, storing it in a temporary variable is useless and slows down your script.

I don't really understand the end of your script but a newsletter only sends mails to registered users. So the idea is to create a list of e-mails and to send a message, the newsletter, to each subscribed users...

I hope it helps,
JM

[helz]

i dont need to use a loop since all the emails are on one row, i did try the mysql_num_rows but i couldnt get it to work
and the variable names dont really matter since its just me using them so exist seemed alright to use since the variable contains the current emails.
The end of the code is where it inserts the posted email into the database, because all the emails are on 1 line then i want to use UPDATE if their are already emails in, or INSERT if there are no emails (uses the mysql_num_rows).

i originally had it as 1 email per row, but was then advised to have it as all emails in 1 row.

just tested it with about 6 emails, and it ran instantly...

[goa103]

If it works... But I don't think using a row to store multiple emails is a solution. Using 1 email per row shouldn't slow down your web server. For each emails in your emails table, you send a mail... That's all you have to do. And that solution is used for scripts and database that handles thousands of users. Imagine the row you get when it comes to send the newsletter to 1000 users !

Maybe you should try to post your old script for us to check it out.

JM

[helz]

yea, i know its a bad method but i wanted to find the fastest way... ill have to recreate the old script again, kinda over-wrote it

[steadyguy]

Also, to cut down on the number of calls to sendmail (via the mail() function, if you put users in the Bcc field, you can send only one mail to a [e-mail] address ... and you won't have to worry about recipients seeing the addresses of other recipients, not to mention cutting down on server traffic.

[helz]

wont it cause an error if you try to send it to a fake email address?
even tho this isnt using php.. i get emails that are sent from outlook express, where the emails its sent to are not displayed. the only thing that is displayed is: Undisclosed-Recipient:;

[goa103]

An other trick is to send your emails "by letter", first you send the newsletter to a*@<domain name>, then b, c... It avoids you to build an emails list made up by ALL your members.

So you can parse all your emails and send a newsletter for each email... It means "number of emails" mail calls. But you can also build a list of emails and make 1 mail call.

It depends of how your mail server works. CGI -> avoid multiple calls.

Hope it helps,
JM

[helz]

sounds interesting... you got an example??

[steadyguy]

No, it won't cause an error if you use a fake address neither sendmail nor mail() can tell the difference between a real address and an address that looks real, but isn't. Though the server will get a n email bounced back to it. But you could avoid this by creating the address, and use that address as a sort of 'archive' for all newsletters sent. And if you have a noreply type address, generally people see that and won't send mail to it. You might want to include a response address either in the Reply-To header, or in the email itself.

[helz]

sounds great! will post the old script soon...

[helz]

i changed the script to the old style, much easier i must add, also put the emails in the bcc part which works perfectly 🙂
consider this thread RESOLVED 😃