Mail() function - sending one e-mail with info from multiple records

[new7media]

I have a need to send an e-mail to someone who has lost their password. The way we set this up, a person might have several passwords depending on their access level. (This is a little screwy I know but there are a couple of reasons why we set it up like this) I want to send just one email that includes all passwords.

I'm using the following code but what's happening is depending on how many passwords someone has, that number plus one e-mail is getting sent out. So if there are three passwords in the dbase the user gets one email that includes the first password, then another email that includes the first and second password, then one that includes all three passwords, then one more that includes the first password -- like the first email sent out. How can I just get one email sent with all passwords?

Here's the code I use after querying the dbase and getting all records from login table that match the inputted email address and reminder clue:

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	$email = $row['email'];
	$password = $row['password'];
	$access_level = $row['access_level'];
	$userinfo = array($access_level => $password);
	foreach ($userinfo as $key => $value){ 
		$info .= "Access Level: $key\nPassword: $value\n\n"; 
	}
	mail ("$email","Password found","$info","FROM:$admin_email");
}

[devinemke]

i don't quite undertsand your data structure. where are all of these separate passwords stored. it looks like you have 1 field in your table called "password". is that just 1 or is it a password list? if it's a list, how is it delimited?

[new7media]

Hi and thanks for your help!

All of the data is stored in one table. So the passwords are actually in separate records. When i query the dbase I may get several rows that include the same contact_email but different access level/password info.

[devinemke]

well i think you should really change your data structure but here's the basic idea with your current structure:

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc ($result))
{ 
	extract ($row);
	$password_array[] = array ('password' => $password, 'access_level' => $access_level); 
}

$message = 'Here is a list of your passwords and access levels:' . "\n\n" . 'email: ' . $email . "\n\n";
foreach ($password_array as $value)
{
	extract ($value);
	$message .= 'password: ' . $password . "\n" . 'access level: ' . $access_level . "\n\n";
}

mail ($email, 'Password found', $message);

why redundantly store all that duplicate contact info? you should consider setting up a separate table for passwords. if you have a 1 to many relationship of emails to passwords then simply store the email once in one table and store the multiple passwords in another table and relate the two by a common key. that's the basic idea behind a relational database system: relating common keys together in different tables.

[new7media]

David - thanks so much for this. This is the second time in about a week you've pulled me out of trouble. Many thanks.

About the data structure - I totally understand your point. There was a good reason to set up the table as we did but I'm so fried right now, honestly, I can't remember the point of our structure! I'm sitting here scratching my head about this. Why DID we set things up this way???

Anyhoo - thanks again for your help and I'll give your code a whirl. I'm sure it's exactly right!