Sending email using mail() and MySQL - Please help!

rastem

Hey all,

I had an issue with having a while loop send out email to each person on a MySQL list. I opened a previous forum entry (can be found here.) But the gist of the solution was to put a -q switch at the end of the mail loop. My first problem is that my page was timing out, perhaps due to the volume of emails being sent. With this new code, the page didn't time out, but I don't know if the emails were sent at all (I am on the list and I have not received mine). I do know that I got a warning for each recipient on the email list. The warning was:

WARNING: Ignoring submission mode -t option with -q

I've included the pertinent code at the end of the post. I am totally at a loss as to what to do. Please help!

Ras.

Code:

if($confirm_email) 
// it is previewed before submitting
{
	connect();
	$q_eboxes = "SELECT a.email_address FROM emails as a LEFT JOIN newsletter as n ON a.entry_ID = n.entry_ID WHERE n.newsletter = 1"; 
// makes sure only those who request the newsletter are sent it.
$result = mysql_query($q_eboxes);

// snip

while($a_eboxes = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{	
	mail("$a_eboxes[email_address]", $subject, $msg_body, $mail1_headers, "-q"); 
// the "-q" was added on suggestion from last forum entry
	}}?>

nlhowell

I don't know if this is related to your problem (I haven't worked with mail() in a year or so), but your mail call:

  mail("$a_eboxes[email_address]", $subject, $msg_body, $mail1_headers, "-q");

You want:

  mail("{$a_eboxes[email_address]}", $subject, $msg_body, $mail1_headers, "-q");

PHP doesn't treat the [ or ] as part of the variable unless you force it to:

$array = array('apples','oranges','grapes','pears');
$index = 2;
print "mystring1$array[$index]mystring2"; // mystring1Array[2]mystring2
print "mystring1{$array[$index]}mystring2"; // mystring1grapesmystring2
print "mystring1".$array[$index]."mystring2"; // mystring1grapesmystring2

Also, don't rely on PHP to properly interpret $array[mystring] as $array['mystring']; they don't always come out to the same thing.

HTH,
Nick

rastem

Thanks for the post, Nick. The $a_eboxes variable is an array pulled from the MySQL DB. While it's in a while($a = $b) statement, it should work fine w/ the brackets, because it's an assoc. array. That's not the problem because the newsletter goes out to a good number of people already, but it just times out. With the "-q" switch that sxooter suggested in the last forum that I had on this, the emails apparently never even went out, though it did process all the while() requests. Again, the warning given (if it helps) was

WARNING: Ignoring submission mode -t option with -q

nlhowell

Come to think of it, you don't need to have quotes around mail("$a_eboxes[email_address]",$subject,$msg_body,$mail1_headers,"-q"); at all:

mail($a_eboxes['email_address'],_$subject,_$msg_body,_$mail1_headers,_"-q");

Less chance of a PHP screwup.

Also, did you misspell $mail_headers?

rastem

right. So anyone have an idea as to the solution?

Nate

The reason your script times out without the -q is most likely because you have a big list. Calling mail() 15,000 times will time out your script before it gets even close to finishing.

2 solutions i can think of. Both assume you remove that -q switch.

1) instead of calling mail() for each email address what about sending 1 big email? (You could BCC it)

$emails = 'email1,email2,email3'; //get your emails into a string like this
mail($emails, $subject, $body, $etc);

2) send 300 at a time using LIMIT 0,300. then LIMIT 300,600, etc. (This could be programmed with a meta refresh)

rastem

I remember reading that php's mail() function doesn't deal with bcc: headers very well, is this still true w/ the current version? Because BCC looks like an adequate solution for now.

LMK,

Ras.

Nate

I've never heard anything like that except I do know BCC won't work on Windows. I have used it on Linux and it worked fine though. Even for huge groups of emails.