Email script dilemna

[Quetzal]

Hello

This is my first encounter with PHP, about which I know nothing!

I have a script, however, which seems to work and I can either attempt to expand it so that it deals with everything I wish to do, or try to translate it to ASP.

The script sends an email to the site visitor (having completed an online form):

<?
if(!empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_mail']) || !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_message']) || !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_subject']) || !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_name']))
{
$to = "[e-mail]";
$subject = stripslashes($HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_subject']);
$body = stripslashes($HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_message']);
$body .= "\n\n---------------------------\n";
$body .= "Mail sent by: " . $HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_name'] . " <" . $HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_mail'] . ">\n";
$header = "From: " . $HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_name'] . " <" . $HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_mail'] . ">\n";
$header .= "Reply-To: " . $HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_name'] . " <" . $HTTP_POST_VARS['sender_mail'] . ">\n";
$header .= "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion() . "\n";
$header .= "X-Priority: 1";
if(@mail($to, $subject, $body, $header))
{
echo "output=sent";
} else {
echo "output=error";
}
} else {
echo "output=error";
}
?>

Instead of 'subject' (or, perhaps, in addition to subject), I would like it to contain 'country' as this is one of the fields I will have in my email form.

I also need the script to do a couple of other things:

I would like the script to send a copy of the message to the site visitor's own email address and Webmaster, (the latter being [e-mail]) and to send it HTML formatted as in a list:

Name <--navy bold (followed by Joe Bloggs)
Email: <--navy bold (followed by [e-mail])
Country: <--navy bold (followed by UK/USA whatever)
Message: <--navy bold (followed by whatever the message is).

Then I wish this date to be stored in an MS Access database which I have.

I am sure PHP can do all of the above; I'm just not certain whether to stick with the little I know of ASP, or use this script, which I know works.

Many thanks.

Steve

[cahva]

For sending html emails I would use Mimemail (look at the examples)

Use $_POST instead of $HTTP_POST_VARS as its deprecated(it works now but not in the future. In PHP5 you have to explicitly enable those long arrays).

Also check the incoming posted variables so that your script cant be used by mean spammers.
The things to check for spam in mails are:

form fields that have <input type="text"...

• check for newlines

• check for emailheaders

form fields <textarea>

• check for emailheaders

I found 2 functions suitable for that in the manual and have been using them myself:
http://fi.php.net/manual/en/ref.mail.php#62027

For storing the data in to MS Access you should look into ODBC functions in PHP:
http://fi.php.net/manual/en/function.odbc-connect.php

There is a lot of tutorials for that also if you google it. I myself have not used MS Access in PHP so I cannot give further advice on that issue.

[Quetzal]

Hello Cahva

Thank you for getting back to me and the links.

I have downloaded them and will have some heavy reading to do.

Much appreciated!

Steve