MIME / Multitype

[Aludaan]

Hello,

I have been working on a project at my job and they want HTML email capability. My problem comes in that I can send plain text emails and I can send HTML emails but I am having problems doing the multi-part types. I would only ever be sending a text or HTML email so it would never vary. The following code is the closest I have come to what I believe is the way the code is supposed to be:

<?php
$headers = "From: MrTemp <[e-mail]>\r\n";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"unique-boundary-1\";\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n";

$text .= "--unique-boundary-1\r\n";
$text .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\r\n";
$text .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n";
$text .= "This is a test of plain text emails\r\n";

$text .= "--unique-boundary-1\r\n";
$text .= "Content-Type: text/html;\r\n";
$text .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n";
$text .= "This is a test of html text emails.<br><font color=\"#FF0000\">high severity</font>\r\n";

$text .= "--unique-boundary-1--\r\n";

mail("[e-mail]", "testing", "$text","$headers");
php?>

I am clearly doing something wrong though as my emails come through with no text.

Any help that can be provided will be greatly appreciated,

Aludaan

[poison]

ok...I read a few RFC's before I understood it...

$boundary_main=md5(uniqid(rand()));
$boundary_alternative=md5(uniqid(rand()));

// generate headers
$header  ="MIME-Version: 1.0";
$header.="\r\n";
$header.="From: <{$email_from}>";
$header.="\r\n";
$header.="To: <{$email_to}>";
$header.="\r\n";
$header.="Subject: {$email_subject}";
$header.="\r\n";
$header.="Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"{$boundary_main}\"";
$header.="";


// display if no Mime - compliant EMail client is used
$msg ="\r\n\r\n";
$msg.="you need an mime compliant email reader to view.";
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";

// begin main part - inline
$msg.="--{$boundary_main}";
$msg.="\r\n";

// begin subtype alternatives
$msg.="Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=\"{$boundary_alternative}\"";
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";

// plaintext version
$msg.="--{$boundary_alternative}";
$msg.="\r\n";
$msg.="Content-Type: text/plain";
$msg.="\r\n";
$msg.="Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64";
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";
// content
$msg.=encodeBase64($mail_text);
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";

// html version
$msg.="--{$boundary_alternative}";
$msg.="\r\n";
$msg.="Content-Type: text/html";
$msg.="\r\n";
$msg.="Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64";
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";
// content
$msg.=encodeBase64($mail_html);
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";

// end subtype alternatives
$msg.="--{$boundary_alternative}--";
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";

// end main part and mail
$msg.="--{$boundary_main}--";
$msg.="\r\n\r\n";


// base64 encode data
function encodeBase64 ($data) {
	return (chunk_split(base64_encode($data)));
}

for more details about email/mime see:
RFC 822, RFC 934, RFC 1049, RFC 2045, RFC 2046 and RFC 2047 for a quick start
have fun

[Aludaan]

Thanks. That seems to have done the trick.

I had read a couple of the RFC's but I was having a tough time grasping the whole scope of it. (There is alot of RFC's just for MIME) But to make it worse is I was having troubles trying to figure out how to implement it using PHP. But reading your example pretty much explained exactly what I was looking for... no RFC's needed!

Although I will say I was a bit surprised to see that it required me to use 2 sets of boundary's. I thought I would only need one.

Thanks a ton for your help though. You no doubt have saved me alot of time.

Aludaan

[poison]

Although I will say I was a bit surprised to see that it required me to use 2 sets of boundary's. I thought I would only need one.

because that multipart/alternative section can be seen as an extra block which can contain numerous alternatives...

Thanks a ton for your help though

np