Combining functionalities to generate pdf from user-submitted data and send by mail?

singvogel

I'm a complete beginner to PHP, but I have found some very useful scripts on the web for the functionality I am trying to implement on my website. I am trying to wrap my head around how to combine the scripts into the exact functionality I want.

I would like the user to be able to complete a form on my website (say: E-mail: john@doe.com), be able to upload a file as part of that form (say: photo.jpg) and press submit. I'd then like to call the FPDF script to generate a pdf with the contents of the form (say a file called "johndoe.pdf" containing the text "john@doe.com" that the user submitted in the form. When the user hits submit in the form, I want the generated pdf plus the uploaded file (johndoe.pdf + photo.jpg) to be sent as attachments in an e-mail to the user (john@doe.com) as well as to another recipient (say webmaster@site.com).

I have found some scripts that together contain the functionality that I'd like to have:

http://www.fpdf.org/ > Can generate pdfs
http://www.daniweb.com/web-development/php/code/217105 > Generates pdf using fpdf and sends it as an e-mail to the specified address, but does not contain the ability to use form data when generating the pdf.
http://youhack.me/2010/06/10/dynamically-generate-pdf-files-in-php/ > Generates pdf using fpdf from user submitted form data, but does not contain send as e-mail functionality
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_file_upload.asp > PHP upload functionality

I have the idea that combining these scripts together to perform the functionality is quite simple if you know PHP, but alas I don't. With the basic functionality in place I think I would feel confident in adding fields to the form, additional upload fields, as well as working on the layout of the generated pdf.

Is there anyone with a good knowledge of PHP who can help me along in combining/changing the scripts to get the functionality that I am looking for?

cretaceous

Combining several scripts like that is a bad idea

Take one of the scripts and then by looking at the others, figure out what needs to be added - but for that you need some PHP knowledge

People aren't going to do the work for you here - you need to make a start on it yourself.
I'd say a beginner should be able to figure this out, but there's a fair bit to learn.

johanafm

Also, I'd strongly recommend against using any kind of information coming from the url "w-three-schools".
Do note that they have nothing to do with the url w3.org which belongs to W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium.

Also be aware that the site is utter crap. A lot of their information is wrong or missleading.

singvogel

Thanks a lot for your very helpful answers. I feel I have progressed a long way. I can now have user submitted data inserted into a pdf and the pdf sent by e-mail to the user using two seperate pages (form.php and send.php). But to make the file upload work as I want it - the file should only be uploaded temporarily to the server and sent by e-mail - my understanding is that I need to use only one page which contains both the form and the PHP script.

My understanding is that I need to call the PDF- and mail-generating code as a function that executes when the user hits submit in my form.

I have tried this, but I am not doing this correctly since an e-mail is not sent off when the user clicks submit.

If someone can point me in the right direction with regards to how to implement the pdf- and mail-generating code as a function that (only) executes when the user clicks submit, that would be most helpful.

Here is my code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<body>

 <form action="?rvspsubmit"  method="post" class="registration_form" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <fieldset>
   <label for="name">Name:</label>
   <input type="text" name="name" value="John Doe" size="25"><br>
   <label for="emailaddress">E-mail:</label>
   <input type="text" name="emailaddress" value="john@doe.com" size="25"><br>
   <label for="fileupload">File:</label>
   <input type="file" name="fileupload" id="file"><br>
   <input type="hidden" value="submitted">
   <button type="submit">Submit</button>
 </form> 

<?php

  function rsvpsubmit() { 

// download fpdf class (http://fpdf.org)
require("fpdf.php");

// fpdf object
$pdf = new FPDF();

// generate a simple PDF (for more info, see http://fpdf.org/en/tutorial/)
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont("Arial","B",14);
$pdf->Cell(40,10, $_POST['name']);

// email stuff (change data below)
$to = $_POST['emailaddress'].",webmaster@admin.com";
$from = "webmaster@admin.com";
$subject = "send email with pdf attachment";
$message = "<p>Hello. See the attachment.</p>";

// a random hash will be necessary to send mixed content
$separator = md5(time());

// carriage return type (we use a PHP end of line constant)
$eol = PHP_EOL;

// attachment name
$filename = "example.pdf";

// encode data (puts attachment in proper format)
$pdfdoc = $pdf->Output("", "S");
$attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($pdfdoc));

// main header (multipart mandatory)
$headers = "From: ".$from.$eol;
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$separator."\"".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol;
$headers .= "This is a MIME encoded message.".$eol.$eol;

// message
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $message.$eol.$eol;

// attachment PDF
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $attachment.$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "--".$separator."--";

// send message
mail($to, $subject, "", $headers);

}
    ?>

</body>
</html>

Thanks in advance!

singvogel

Nevermind, solved this part!

singvogel

Stuck again. I have now implemented file upload, pdf generation and having a mail sent with the generated pdf and the file(s) uploaded.

The user fills out the form in send2.php and the submitted data is then processed in send3.php.

Now I'd like to implement a bit of security on the file uploaded (check for size, file type) before the data submitted/uploaded is processed by send3.php. I'd like to implement the check so that the user stays on send2.php, preferably with already entered form data intact, when he tries to upload a file that fails a check.

What I am having trouble wrapping my head around is how to implement the check on send2.php before the form data is sent to send3.php upon succesful validation.

Any help is much appreciated.

Here are the files.

Send2.php

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
function validateForm()
{
var x=document.forms["skema"]["name"].value;
if (x==null || x=="")
  {
  alert("Du skal skrive dit navn.");
  return false;
  }
}
</script>
</head>
<body>

 <form action="send3.php"  method="post" name="skema" onsubmit="return validateForm()" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <fieldset>
   <label for="name">Navn:</label>
   <input type="text" name="name" value="" size="25"><br>
   <label for="emailaddress">E-mail:</label>
   <input type="text" name="emailaddress" value="" size="25"><br>
   <label for="fileupload">Bilag 1:</label>
   <input type="file" name="fileupload1" id="file1"><br>
   <label for="fileupload">Bilag 2:</label>
   <input type="file" name="fileupload2" id="file2"><br>
   <input type="hidden" value="submitted">
   <button type="submit">Submit</button>
 </form> 

</body>
</html>

Send3.php:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<body>
<html>

<?php

// download fpdf class (http://fpdf.org)
require("fpdf.php");

// fpdf object
$pdf = new FPDF();

// generate a simple PDF (for more info, see http://fpdf.org/en/tutorial/)
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont("Arial","B",14);
$pdf->Cell(40,10, $_POST['name']);

// email stuff (change data below)
$to = $_POST['emailaddress'].",webmaster@admin12344321.com";
$from = "webmaster@admin12344321.com";
$subject = "Your form data";
$message = "<p>Here is your form data.</p>";

// a random hash will be necessary to send mixed content
$separator = md5(time());

// carriage return type (we use a PHP end of line constant)
$eol = PHP_EOL;

// attachment name
$filename = "example.pdf";

// encode data (puts attachment in proper format)
$pdfdoc = $pdf->Output("", "S");
$attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($pdfdoc));

// main header (multipart mandatory)
$headers = "From: ".$from.$eol;
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$separator."\"".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol;
$headers .= "This is a MIME encoded message.".$eol.$eol;

// message
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $message.$eol.$eol;

// attachment PDF
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $attachment.$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;

// VEDHAEFTNING1
if($_FILES["fileupload1"]["name"] != "")  
{  
$strFilesName = $_FILES["fileupload1"]["name"];  
$strContent = chunk_split(base64_encode(file_get_contents($_FILES["fileupload1"]["tmp_name"])));  
$headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$strFilesName."\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $strContent.$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
}  

// VEDHAEFTNING2
if($_FILES["fileupload2"]["name"] != "")  
{  
$strFilesName = $_FILES["fileupload2"]["name"];  
$strContent = chunk_split(base64_encode(file_get_contents($_FILES["fileupload2"]["tmp_name"])));  
$headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$strFilesName."\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $strContent.$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
}  

$headers .= "--".$separator."--";


// send message
mail($to, $subject, "", $headers);

?>

</body>
</html>

bradgrafelman

singvogel;10999548 wrote:
Now I'd like to implement a bit of security on the file uploaded (check for size, file type) before the data submitted/uploaded is processed by send3.php.

You can't do that. For security reasons, Javascript doesn't have any access to the 'file' input elements let alone access to your hard drive in order to inspect random files' types and sizes.

Thus, you'll have to do such checking in send3.php after the form is submitted. You could still use Javascript to do other validation (e.g. ensure certain fields aren't left blank), but note that you'll still need to duplicate the same validation on the server-side script since any client-side scripting can easily be modified or disabled/bypassed altogether.

singvogel;10999548 wrote:
I'd like to implement the check so that the user stays on send2.php, preferably with already entered form data intact, when he tries to upload a file that fails a check.

One alternative would be to have send3.php re-display the form with the form fields' default values set to the same values that were POST'ed (in other words, pre-fill the form such that its default state matches what the user just POST'ed).