[RESOLVED] Using PHP to email...

[zrocker]

I would like to have a email code in php to take the email addresses and loop through and personalize each email showing database info... I know how to do a looping command... but I am not sure how to make it do it as a email... Can someone point me in the right direction... I want something basic and simple to modify..

[farius]

The php mail function could work, but if you are doing a lot of e-mails this tends to take a while and sucks system rescources. thus try the PEAR package for mail I think it is PEAR::mail

If you know how to loop already that is a big help. All you do then is loop the e-mail address for the sender, and fill in the correct data for the body. If you need an example I can provide one but just not right now, I am on my way to class...

Micro-Economics Wahooo!!!

[zrocker]

thank you for your reply... Does this seem to be able to work... i didnt get an error but i havent gotten an email either... it might take a bit... but please check to see if this simple example script i wrote out would work...

<?PHP
require("dbconn.php");

$sql1 = "select * from email";
$result1 = @mysql_query($sql1);
while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result1) ) { 

$email = $row["email"];	 
$name = $row["name"]; 
$descript = $row["descript"];
$descript = wordwrap($descript, 70);
$city = $row["city"];
$price = $row["price"]; 
$date=$row["timestamp"];
$date = date("m/d/y",strtotime($date));

 $to = "$email";
 $message = "<table width=\"650\" height=\"173\" border=\"1\" bordercolor=\"#0000FF\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\">
  <tr>
    <td width=\"371\">Name: $name </td>
    <td width=\"263\">Location: $city </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Product Description: $descript </td>
    <td>Price: $price </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan=\"2\"><div align=\"right\">Date Of Sale: $date </div></td>
  </tr>
</table>";

$footer = "Have a great day and thanks for shopping with us.";

mail($to, Receipt for transactions, $message, $footer);


 }
?>

[farius]

$to = "$email"; 
     $message = "<table width=\"650\" height=\"173\" border=\"1\" bordercolor=\"#0000FF\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"> 
  <tr> 
    <td width=\"371\">Name: $name </td> 
    <td width=\"263\">Location: $city </td> 
  </tr> 
  <tr> 
    <td>Product Description: $descript </td> 
    <td>Price: $price </td> 
  </tr> 
  <tr> 
    <td colspan=\"2\"><div align=\"right\">Date Of Sale: $date </div></td> 
  </tr> 
</table>"; 

$footer = "Have a great day and thanks for shopping with us."; 

mail($to, Receipt for transactions, $message, $footer); 

Change to this:

$to = $email; 
     $message = '<table width="650" height="173" border="1" bordercolor="#0000FF" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"> 
  <tr> 
    <td width="371">Name: $name </td> 
    <td width="263">Location: $city </td> 
  </tr> 
  <tr> 
    <td>Product Description: $descript </td> 
    <td>Price: $price </td> 
  </tr> 
  <tr> 
    <td colspan="2"><div align="right">Date Of Sale: $date </div></td> 
  </tr> 
</table>'; 

$footer = "Have a great day and thanks for shopping with us."; 

mail($to, Receipt for transactions, $message, $footer); 

Reasons:

The $to = "$email" could assign $to the string equivalent of $email which is '$email' instead of the actual value of $email which may be [e-mail].

Also, instead of using double quotes (" ") use single when dealing with HTML, it simplifies the text, and saves typing in backslashes.

Try this and let me know.

Also I want to congratulate you on doing the correct thing which is presenting a question and when in return presented with a solution, you try it out and write your OWN version. This definitely will help you in the long run because you will learn faster/commit syntax to memory faster.

I prefer when I ask a question to give me the response without code but rather with a text response, that way in requires me to figure it out. If you really get stuck, surely you can ask for an example and I or anyone will try and help you out. But trying first is they best way!!!

[zrocker]

Alright, thanks for the encouragement.... I did as you asked... but I am still not getting the email... Is there something i need to change on my server to enable email function through PHP?

Here is the code i changed up...

<?PHP
require("dbconn.php");

$sql1 = "select * from email";
$result1 = @mysql_query($sql1);
while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result1) ) { 

$email = $row["email"];	 
$name = $row["name"]; 
$descript = $row["descript"];
$descript = wordwrap($descript, 70);
$city = $row["city"];
$price = $row["price"]; 
$date=$row["timestamp"];
$date = date("m/d/y",strtotime($date));

 $to = $email;
 $message = '<table width="650" height="173" border="1" bordercolor="#0000FF" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
  <tr>
    <td width="371">Name: $name </td>
    <td width="263">Location: $city </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Product Description: $descript </td>
    <td>Price: $price </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="2"><div align="right">Date Of Sale: $date </div></td>
  </tr>
</table>';

$footer = "Have a great day and thanks for shopping with us.";

mail($to, Receipt for transactions, $message, $footer);


 }
?>

[zrocker]

Ok great got a working code... and I will point out the problems i ran into to resolve the two or so issues... but I also need help with one more...

First off, instead of having a varible $subject... I just wrote out receipt for transactions... I should had placed it into quotations...

[code=php]mail($to, "Receipt for transactions", $message, $headers);[/code]

Second problem i ran into was $footer and $header -- needed for html emails -- well they could not fit in the mail function together... something about a safe mode error...

third error was it was sending out emails and working great but it was not placing the varibles in the html... So it would just show $city instead of Dallas, Tx... I then said why not just change the 'HTML code in here'; to "HTML code with backslashes in here"; and it worked... I dont understand why though when you suggested changing that to save time from doing backslashes... weird please explain that to me...

<?PHP
require("dbconn.php");

$sql1 = "select * from email";
$result1 = @mysql_query($sql1);
while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result1) ) { 

$email = $row["email"];	 
$name = $row["name"]; 
$descript = $row["descript"];
$descript = wordwrap($descript, 70);
$city = $row["city"];
$price = $row["price"]; 
$date=$row["timestamp"];
$date = date("m/d/y",strtotime($date));

 $to = $email;
 $message = "<table width=\"650\" height=\"173\" border=\"1\" bordercolor=\"#0000FF\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\">
  <tr>
    <td width=\"371\">Name: $name </td>
    <td width=\"263\">Location: $city </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Product Description: $descript </td>
    <td>Price: $price </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan=\"2\"><div align=\"right\">Date Of Sale: $date </div></td>
  </tr>
</table>";

   echo "$message";

   $headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
   $headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";

$footer = "Have a great day and thanks for shopping with us.";

mail($to, "Receipt for transactions", $message, $headers);


 }
?>

That is the final code so far... I have 2 questions more... instead of its saying [e-mail]. how do i change that to say [e-mail]?

second question is... how many emails can the mail() before it starts to bog down resorces on the server?

Thank you for all your help also...