Where to start. . .rotating email, kind of???

[Aliz__]

Ok here is my question.

I will have a form, and lets say I have 3 different emails
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Every time the form is filled out I need it to go to a different person in an equal amount. so the first time it is submitted it goes to john, then the 2nd time to lindsey and the 3rd time to steve. and it just keeps going in that order over and over again so it is all evened out. Does that make sense.

I am not asking for the full code but if someone could kind of point me in the right direction of where to start then it would be helpful. I don't see why PHP couldn't do this but you never know.

or maybe is there a way so that everytime the page is viewed it will be sent to a different person. But I guess that wouldn't be too accurate because if someone doesn't submit the form then it would skip a person. I dunno, please help. . .

Thanks

[Aliz__]

ok here is what I have so far, basically it just changes the email by "random" every refresh or view.

any help on so it maybe goes in order from each email so it is equally sent to different people.

<?php

// Number of emails
$total_emails = 3;

$rand_email = rand(1,$total_emails);

// Don't edit
$window = 1;

// array of different emails
$email_1 = array("[e-mail]");
$email_2 = array("[e-mail]");
$email_3 = array("[e-mail]");

// random emails

if($rand_email == 1) {
    $show_email = $email_1[0];
} elseif($rand_email == 2) {
    $show_email = $email_2[0];
} elseif($rand_email == 3) {
    $show_email = $email_3[0];
}

if($window == 1) {
    echo $show_email;
}

?>

<?php
mail($show_email, "Test for emailing. Thanks", "This is the first line of the message\nThis is the second line\nand this is the 3rd line.",
"From: [email][e-mail][/email]\r\n");
?> 

by the way I have tested the current script and it works, i just need it to not pick an email by random, but go in order, I know I used the random command but im not sure if there is something else I can do so it picks and email in order.

Thanks

[kingbear]

Note: If you're using a version of PHP before 4.2.0, you need to seed the rand() function with the srand() function otherwise the "random" number will always be the same which will in turn always send the email to the same person.

[Aliz__]

Thanks, but Im hoping not to even use the random function at all since I need the emails to be sent out equally in order to the different emails. . .:bemused:

[kingbear]

In that case, keep a little text file that stores the last email address sent ... so if you have 10 emails and you just sent one to the fifth address, write '5' to a file and then use the sixth one next time ....

here's some basic code (be sure to create a file called 'lastsent' containing just a 0 at the first position in the same directory as the script)

//Add all emails to this array
$emails = array("[e-mail]", ...);
$totalEmails = count($emails);

//Read the last email sent
$f = file("lastsent");
$lastsent = trim($f[0]);
//Get the next one
$sendTo = ($lastsent + 1) % $totalEmails;

//Here's the address you sent to:
$emailAddr = $emails[$sendTo];

//Send the mail
mail($emailAddr, $subject, $body);

//Overwrite the file with the new email
$res = fopen("lastsent", "w");
fwrite($res, $sendTo);
fclose($res);

This assures the each email receives the same amount of use.

[Aliz__]

Thank you so much.

I haven't tested any of it yet but it all looks to make sense to me. . .I just have one question about it.

Lets say I have 10 emails. Once it sends an email to the 10th person how would I tell it to start back with the first person. I didn't see anywhere where it said anything like that. It seems to me that it would go onto the 11th person but there isn't an 11th person.

Or does it automatically know to start back with the first person once it sends to the last person???

or would i need to write an If statement saying something like if $lastsent equals 10 then send to 1 or something like that. . .???

Thanks

[kingbear]

It's already taken care of by this line:

$sendTo = ($lastsent + 1) % $totalEmails; 

the '%' operator returns the remainder on integer division (for example, 11 % 10 = 1);

[Aliz__]

will it work no matter how many emails i have, such as 13 or something incase i need to add more later on.

would i just need to add emails to this line. . .

$emails = array("[e-mail]", ...); 

[kingbear]

yeah, just add as many email addresses as you want to the $emails array