Help w/ Email Encoder Needed

[vmusic]

Hi,
I am having trouble communicating my problem. I have a contact form - and below is the code that processes the data from the contact form. It emails the data from the contact form to an email address that has previously been encoded. So before I ever write this php mailer code, I have to know which web site I'm working on and use some other php code to encode the email address - see the code labeled: PHP Mailer to see how this works - the comments explain. In my made up example, the coded email address string has the value 'j#asa&2lka1293-27lakmckja*uerq'. This string which will exist in a php file, can not (easily) be interpreted by bots because it's not a email address, it's encoded.

The function below labeled: Encode is 'supposed' to encode an email address passed to it. The problem is - if I test the output it's not really encoded, it's the same value I passed in. So for example if I pass in '[e-mail]' - then the output should be some weird encoded string, kind of like my example above, that IS NOT an email address and does not have the '@' character in it. The output of the function is the same as what was passed into it, so it doesn't work.

Any idea why the function encode_address isn't working ? - Please if you offer suggestions, remember it has to work with the decode function. These ARE NOT run together... they're not run at the same time. If you read above, they're run at totally separate times, however whatever string I encode with the encode_address has to be able to be decoded with the decode_address function

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!!
Thanks
Vmusic

PHP Mailer

if( ($emailaddy != "") && ($fname != "") && ($lname != "") && (isset($emailaddy)) && (isset($fname)) && (isset($lname)) ){
   //we're processing a submitted form
   $mail_to = "j#asa&2lka1293-27lakmckja*uerq"; //no bots understand this
   $mail_from = $emailaddy;
   $mail_subject = "Web Site Inquiry";
   $mail_body = "This email comes from the contact form on the XYZ Web Site\n\n";
   $mail_body .= "It is from: "  . $fname . " " . $lname . "\n\n";
   $mail_body .=  "Their return email is: " . $mail_from . "\n\n";
   $mail_body .= "Their message is: \n" . stripslashes($msg);

   $mail_to = decode_addr($mail_to); //now I'll decode it in memory

   //mail it
   if(! mail($mail_to, $mail_subject, $mail_body, "From:$mail_from")){
      //set the thanks message for an error
      $txt_welcome = "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There was an error sending your inquiry. The webmaster has been notified. <br><br><br>Thanks!!\n";
.... more code here etc. 

Encode

function encode_address($addr)
{
   echo "<br><br><br>\nInside the encode function, TO START the addy is " . $addr . "<br><br><br>\n";
    $output = "";
    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($addr); $i++) {
        $output .= sprintf("&#x%X;", ord($addr{$i}));
    }
   echo "<br><br><br>\nInside the encode function, TO FINISH the addy is " . $output . "<br><br><br>\n";
    return $output;
}
//////then the corresponding decode function is below
function decode_addr($addr)
{
    return preg_replace('/&#x([A-F0-9]{2});/e', ' chr(0x$1); ', $addr);
}

[bradgrafelman]

vmusic wrote:

In my made up example, the coded email address string has the value 'j#asa&2lka1293-27lakmckja*uerq'.

How did you get this value? Obviously, you didn't use the encode_address() function.

All the encode_address function does is convert each character into it's hexadecimal ASCII value. For example, the string "[e-mail]" becomes "a@b.com".

So... where did you get your "encoded" value??

[vmusic]

Hi,
No.....that's just my problem. the encode function doesn't - you claim it converts each character into it's hexadecimal ASCII value. But as you can see in the code below, I tested the value of the $output variable... and I get the EXACT same value I passed into the function.

What's in the formatting of sprintf that's like converting the hex ASCII value back to it's character?

for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($addr); $i++) {
        $output .= sprintf("&#x%X;", ord($addr{$i}));
}
echo "<br><br><br>\nInside the encode function, TO FINISH the addy is " . $output . "<br><br><br>\n";

In my example... I just arbitrarily made up some characters to show how the encode function is supposed to work. The problem is the encode_addr does not work. Please see the original post

Can you help explain why it doesn't work?

Thanks!!!!

[Weedpacket]

$addr = '[e-mail]';

for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($addr); $i++) {
        $output .= sprintf("&#x%X;", ord($addr{$i}));
}
echo "<br><br><br>\nInside the encode function, TO FINISH the addy is " . $output . "<br><br><br>\n";

Output:

<br><br><br>
Inside the encode function, TO FINISH the addy is &#x74;&#x65;&#x73;&#x74;&#x40;&#x65;&#x78;&#x61;&#x6D;&#x70;&#x6C;&#x65;&#x2E;&#x63;&#x6F;&#x6D;<br><br><br>

Which, after it has been rendered as HTML, appears as:

Inside the encode function, TO FINISH the addy is [e-mail]

Seems to be working for me.