Form submission problem

gwh

Hi,

I'm just learning how to create a script that will echo a message to the browser and also send the contents of a form to an email address once the submit button is pressed.

I'm trying to test it out with some code I got from a book, and I've attached the file with the php code in it in case someone would like to have a look (the instructions on this site didn't say you could attach a php file so I've made it a txt file just for troubleshooting). Since you can't attach two files on this forum, the html form code is:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>E-Mail Form</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FORM action="sendmail.php" method="POST">
<p><strong>Name:</strong><br> <INPUT type="text" size="25" name="name"></p>
<p><strong>E-Mail Address:</strong><br> <INPUT type="text" size="25" name="email"></p>
<p><strong>Message:</strong><br>
<textarea name="message" cols=30 rows=5></textarea></p>
<p><INPUT type="submit" value="send"></p>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Basically, it's echoing to the browser correctly but it's not sending the contents of the form to my email address. I know that the recipient variable is only generic at the moment but I did test it with my email address and it still didn't work.

I'm using a Macintosh computer, OS 10.3.9, php5 and Apache. I was just wondering does it have something to do with the php.ini file - I mean do I need to adjust anything here?

Would really appreciate if someone could take a look at the files I've uploaded to help me troubleshoot.

Thanks

bubblenut

do var_dump(mail(...)); rather than just mail(...); this will show you what the mail function is returning. I'm guessing that you don't have a MTA set up on your machine and therefore the function is failing.

gwh

Thanks for replying,

I've just done what you suggested and it echoed bool(true) to the screen along with everything else it was supposed to.

I'm not sure what this means and I don't know what an MTA is - can you explain?

bubblenut

An MTA is a Mail Transfer Agent, the program which transfers emails (usually sendmail on a Linux box). If mail returns true it should mean that the email is sent. Check out the mail page in the php manual at php.net, there are lots of comments.

gwh

Thanks again for the info:

I've had a quick look at the php manual but it's written in such complex terms for a beginner like me.

If someone can suggest some solution that's easy to understand I'd be grateful.

Will check back tomorrow morning as it's nearly midnight where I am at the moment.