[RESOLVED] Posting data to email without Submit button

lfg7986

Hi,

Apologise if there's a dozen threads like this already, however, after trawling for hours I can't seem to find anything that achieves what I need.

Basically, I have a contact form, once the user clicks the Submit button, I get the content delivered to my email address, and the user gets a message saying "thank you blah blah, you're ref no. is blah blah". the reference number is nothing special, just a Unix timestamp in PHP. (All this is on the same page as the form also, just an else statement once the form is submitted).

Here is the code so far:

 <?php else: ?>
<p>Thank you for your enquiry!</p>
<p>Your reference number is <b><?php
$date=date_create();
echo date_timestamp_get($date);
?></b>. Please quote this Reference Number when corresponding about your enquiry.</p>
<p>We endeavour to respond to each enquiry as soon as possible, however, please allow for up to 3 working days for feedback.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

What I want to happen, really, is that when the user reaches the thankyou page, I also want to grab the printed reference number, which will then also get sent to my email address. So, in effect, I'll have two emails at the end of it: the contact form that was submitted by the user by using a conventional form, and a second email stating the reference number like described above. I highly doubt I'll get a huge amount of queries (touch wood), so i think it will be fit-for-purpose.

bradgrafelman

I'm not sure why you need two e-mails... why not just include the value in the first e-mail you send?

lfg7986

bradgrafelman;11040625 wrote:
I'm not sure why you need two e-mails... why not just include the value in the first e-mail you send?

I don't see why not, it makes sense...but how could I "make it so"?

bradgrafelman

How are you sending the e-mail?

lfg7986

bradgrafelman;11040629 wrote:
How are you sending the e-mail?

If I've read this correctly, I'm sending the email via the POST function. I have a fully working and tested form, it's just that now I would obviously like to implement the "reference" number so to speak.

bradgrafelman

Can you show us the form?

"POST" isn't a function, it's an HTTP verb... meaning it's a specific type of HTTP request your browser can send to a webserver. Thus, if an e-mail is to ever get sent that way, you have to have some sort of application/script on the webserver that receives that POST request and acts upon it (e.g. a PHP script that uses mail(), PHPMailer, etc. to send an e-mail).

My question was aimed at simply modifying that application/script to also include this piece of data in the same place it's generated for display to the user.

lfg7986

Ahh OK. Thanks for your patience whilst you're talking to a complete n00b. 🙂

Right...well the first bit of code is as follows (placed above all html code)

<?php
# Form Validation Start
?>
<?php

// Set email variables
$email_to = 'lfg7986@lfg7986.com';
$email_subject = 'Enquiry Received';

// Set required fields
$required_fields = array('fullname','email','comment');

// set error messages
$error_messages = array(
	'fullname' => 'Please enter your Name',
	'email' => 'Please enter a valid Email Address',
	'comment' => 'Please enter your enquiry details'
);

// Set form status
$form_complete = FALSE;

// configure validation array
$validation = array();

// check form submittal
if(!empty($_POST)) {
	// Sanitise POST array
	foreach($_POST as $key => $value) $_POST[$key] = remove_email_injection(trim($value));

// Loop into required fields and make sure they match our needs
foreach($required_fields as $field) {		
	// the field has been submitted?
	if(!array_key_exists($field, $_POST)) array_push($validation, $field);

	// check there is information in the field?
	if($_POST[$field] == '') array_push($validation, $field);

	// validate the email address supplied
	if($field == 'email') if(!validate_email_address($_POST[$field])) array_push($validation, $field);
}

// basic validation result
if(count($validation) == 0) {
	// Prepare our content string
	$email_content = 'New Website Comment: ' . "\n\n";

	// simple email content
	foreach($_POST as $key => $value) {
		if($key != 'submit') $email_content .= $key . ': ' . $value . "\n";
	}

	// if validation passed ok then send the email
	mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_content);

	// Update form switch
	$form_complete = TRUE;
}
}

Then here is the form itself (placed inside body tags):

<?php if($form_complete === FALSE): ?>
<form action="contact.php" method="post" id="comments_form">
  <div class="row">
    <div class="label">Name</div><!-- end .label -->
    <div class="input">
    <input type="text" id="fullname" class="detail" name="fullname" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['fullname'])? $_POST['fullname'] : ''; ?>" /><?php if(in_array('fullname', $validation)): ?><span class="error"><?php echo $error_messages['fullname']; ?></span><?php endif; ?>
    </div><!-- end .input -->
    <div class="context">e.g. Thomas Jones or Lisa Smith</div><!-- end .context -->
  </div><!-- end row -->

<div class="row">
<div class="label">Email</div><!-- end .label -->
<div class="input">
<input type="text" id="email" class="detail" name="email" value="<?php echo isset($_POST['email'])? $_POST['email'] : ''; ?>" /><?php if(in_array('email', $validation)): ?><span class="error"><?php echo $error_messages['email']; ?></span><?php endif; ?>
</div><!-- end .input -->
 <div class="context">We will not share your email address with any third parties or any other type of organisation.</div><!-- end .context -->
  </div><!-- end row -->
      <div class="row">
    <div class="label">Comments</div><!-- end .label -->
    <div class="input">
    <textarea id="comment" name="comment" class="mess">
<?php echo isset($_POST['comment'])? $_POST['comment'] : ''; ?>
    </textarea><?php if(in_array('comment', $validation)): ?><span class="error"><?php echo $error_messages['comment']; ?></span><?php endif; ?>
    </div><!-- end .input -->
  </div><!-- end row -->

  <div class="submit">
  <input type="submit" id="submit" name="submit" value="Send Message" />
  </div><!-- end .submit -->
</form>
  <?php else: ?>
<p>Thank you for your enquiry!</p>
<p>Your reference number is <b><?php
$mydate=getdate(date("U"));
echo "$mydate[seconds]$mydate[minutes]$mydate[hours]$mydate[mday]";
?></b>. Please quote this Reference Number when corresponding about your enquiry.</p>
<p>We endeavour to respond to each enquiry as soon as possible, however, please allow for up to 3 working days for feedback.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

lfg7986

I'd hazard a guess that I'd need to put the code for the reference number (date) somewhere after the basic validation result comment, but what code I don't know. I've tinkered around a little bit but it has not given me the desired result I was looking for. Basically, the emails are still coming through, and output is still being printed, but not in the form of a "reference number" like expected. Any help would be much appreciated. 🙂

gammaster

In your form:

<input type="hidded" name="refnumb" value="<?php echo time();?>">

Then you can use this in your mail sending and response script:

$_POST['refnumb']

There is a tiny possibility that someone get the same number if they post at the same second, but its small I think :-) To avoid that use a database or a file with lock to save and increase the refnumber.

lfg7986

Gammaster - thank you for this, will try it out!

lfg7986

Ok, so I've added the hidden field, self-explanatory. But as for the POST refnum part, where would I go about placing the syntax? Would I place a new line after the simple email content comment? Or can it be inter-weaved elsewhere? I expect that I would have to place $refnum or refnum in the mail() statement?

// configure validation array
$validation = array();

// check form submittal
if(!empty($_POST)) {
	// Sanitise POST array
	foreach($_POST as $key => $value) $_POST[$key] = remove_email_injection(trim($value));

// Loop into required fields and make sure they match our needs
foreach($required_fields as $field) {		
	// the field has been submitted?
	if(!array_key_exists($field, $_POST)) array_push($validation, $field);

	// check there is information in the field?
	if($_POST[$field] == '') array_push($validation, $field);

	// validate the email address supplied
	if($field == 'email') if(!validate_email_address($_POST[$field])) array_push($validation, $field);
}

// basic validation result
if(count($validation) == 0) {
	// Prepare our content string
	$email_content = 'New Website Comment: ' . "\n\n";

	// simple email content
	foreach($_POST as $key => $value) {
		if($key != 'submit') $email_content .= $key . ': ' . $value . "\n";
	}

	// if validation passed ok then send the email
	mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_content);

	// Update form switch
	$form_complete = TRUE;
}
}

lfg7986

All, I have finally managed to do this and have got it working successfully. Was pretty simple in the end, but got there. Thanks for your guidance and knocking me in the right direction. 🙂

Derokorian

If this issue is resolved, please mark the thread as such using the thread tools at the top.

lfg7986

All done.