Trouble With Mail Forms

[SolomonStone]

Okay, so basically I am trying to create a really simple web form that e-mail me when someone submits. My current code for the form itself is:

<form method="post" action="contact.php"> Email: <input name="email" type="text"><br> Message:<br> <textarea name="message" rows="15" cols="40"></textarea><br> <input type="submit"> </form> 

Now, the really tricky area is the php side. I have tried two different methods with two different results:

 <?php 
$to = "[e-mail]"; 
$subject = "Contact Us"; 
$email = $_REQUEST['email'] ; 
$message = $_REQUEST['message'] ; 
$headers = "From: $email"; 
$sent = mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers) ; 

if($sent) {print "Your mail was sent successfully"; } 
else {print "We encountered an error sending your mail"; } 
?> 

The above code goes through (I changed the $to so it was my e-mail address) in that it takes me to a page that says "Your mail was sent successfully". However, I do not get the e-mail, in spam folders or anything. I have tried sending to a gmail address in addition to my e-mail on the website.

Someone suggested I needed authentication for the SMTP, and I tried the following code:

<?php
 require_once "Mail.php";

 $from = "$_REQUEST['email']";
 $to = "[e-mail]";
 $subject = "Contact Us";
 $body = $_REQUEST['message'];

 $host = "mail.yoursite.com";
 $username = "smtp_username";
 $password = "smtp_password";

 $headers = array ('From' => $from,
   'To' => $to,
   'Subject' => $subject);
 $smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
   array ('host' => $host,
     'auth' => true,
     'username' => $username,
     'password' => $password));

 $mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);

 if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
   echo("<p>" . $mail->getMessage() . "</p>");
  } else {
   echo("<p>Message successfully sent!</p>");
  }
 ?>

This code really hates me. I change the smtp_username/smtp_password to my own login (I asked on Live Chat with my hosting company, and they said it was the username/password for my cpanel), and the $to and $host to correspond with my website and e-mail address (Respectively, inverse: $to is e-mail, $host is website, ofcourse).

When I try and submit the form, I get:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /home/username/public_html/yoursite.com/contact.php on line 4

Any help for a total newbie?

[ixalmida]

There are a lot of mail systems that don't require authentication to send mail, so that's unlikely to be the issue. You should find out though.

This code works perfectly for me on a POP/SMTP mail system using PEAR mail:

// Build headers...
$headers['From'] = $from;
$headers['Reply-To'] = $from;
$headers['Return-path'] = $from;
$headers['To'] = $to;
if($cc != "")
  $headers['Cc'] = $cc;
$headers['Bcc'] = $bcc;
$headers['Subject'] = $subject;
$headers['Date'] = date('D, d M Y H:i:s O');

// Build multi-part message body...
$message->setTXTBody($text);
$message->setHTMLBody($html);

// File attachment, if any...
if($file != "")
  $message->addAttachment($file, 'application/octet-stream');

// Body/headers...
$body = $message->get();
$headers = $message->headers($headers);

// Set up params describing mail back-end...
$params['host'] = "mail.somedomain.com";
$params['port'] = 25;
$params['auth'] = false;
$params["username"] = "";
$params["password"] = "";
$params["timeout"] = 30;

$mail =& Mail::factory('smtp', $params);
$send = $mail->send($recipients, $headers, $body);

Note: I include "Reply-to" and "Return-path" in email because if these don't match the "From" address, some firewalls/spam filters will reject it.

[SolomonStone]

Thanks for the reply.

You have the From, Reply-To, Return-Path, and To set as variables, correct? I can just change them to suit my purposes, for example:

// Build headers...
$headers['From'] = $email;
$headers['Reply-To'] = [e-mail];
$headers['Return-path'] = [e-mail];
$headers['To'] = [e-mail];
if($cc != "")
  $headers['Cc'] = $cc;
$headers['Bcc'] = $bcc;
$headers['Subject'] = Contact Form;
$headers['Date'] = date('D, d M Y H:i:s O'); 

Basically with the above, I changed the Reply-To and Return-Path to my own e-mail, but I'm not sure. I also changed the To section to my e-mail, as when they click a button, I want it to send ME an e-mail. The From field I set as the variable used to get their e-mail. Maybe I should do it differently? I thought about having From/Reply-To/Return-Path set as "[e-mail]" with the To set as "[e-mail]". Then I would just use the $email variable to put it in the body of the e-mail. I don't know how to set it up to append two variables together as the body, though ($email + $body). I do not know about the CC and BCC, I was going to take those out along with the date, as they do not seem to pertain to my needs. I'm not sure.

For the body, I wasn't sure about the setTXTbody or anything, so I was going with:

// Build multi-part message body...
$message->setTXTBody($body);

With that I think I would also need to rename my "message" field in the actual html form to "body" instead.

<form method="post" action="contact.php">
Email: <input name="email" type="text" /><br />
Message:<br />
<textarea name="body" rows="15" cols="40"></textarea><br />
<input type="submit" />
</form>

Changed the name of the text area for the body of the message, and I also self-closed tags such as BR and the INPUT tag.

Now, I think we can skip the attachments section totally, as there will be zero attachments, no option to send them, etc.

Brings us to body/headers, which I don't think needs a change.

// Body/headers...
$body = $message->get();
$headers = $message->headers($headers); 

Now the next thing is your parameters section:

// Set up params describing mail back-end...
$params['host'] = "mail.mysite.com";
$params['port'] = 25;
$params['auth'] = false;
$params["username"] = "";
$params["password"] = "";
$params["timeout"] = 30;

Only thing I would need to change here is the host, right? Do I need to add my username/password?

Next is the actual part that tells it what to do, right? Where does it get $recipients from?

$mail =& Mail::factory('smtp', $params);
$send = $mail->send($recipients, $headers, $body);