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If you are in a UNIX or Linux environment, you will most likely have sendmail installed on your server. If you are using a hosting service, check with your service provider to make sure sendmail or some equivalent is being used. If you are not using sendmail, or you have Apache installed on a Windows server, you have a couple of choices. You can use your existing SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) service, or you can install a mail server such as Mailtraq on your computer. If you have questions or concerns about setting up or using a mail server, many online resources are available to help you. We suggest using a search engine. Once you have your mail server squared away, you ll need to modify your php.ini file. There are a couple of parameters you need to set. Of course, if you are using a hosting service, the host should already have these parameters set up. . SMTP: Set this to the IP address or DNS name of your SMTP server. For example, if you have a mail server installed on the same server as your PHP server, you should be able to set SMTP to localhost. This applies to Windows installations only. . smtp_port: Set this to the port PHP uses to connect to the SMTP server. This applies to Windows installations only and is valid for PHP version 4.3 and above. . sendmail_from: The From address used by default by the PHP mail() command. . sendmail_path: The path to the sendmail program (UNIX/Linux servers only). For most servers, this is usr/sbin/sendmail. That s just about all there is to setting up PHP for e-mail. You will test to make sure it works correctly in the next section, Sending an E-mail. You can find more information about setting up PHP for mail at http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.mail.php. Sending an E-mail The actual method of sending an e-mail is quite simple. Of course, it can be made much more complex with the addition of headers, and sending HTML and images. However, you are going to start off with something simple. Try It Out Sending a Simple E-mail This example is just about the simplest code you can write to send an e-mail. Of course, it s not very flexible, but it does demonstrate the mail() function quite well. 1. Start your favorite text/PHP/HTML editor. 2. Enter the following code. Make sure you put your own e-mail address in as the first parameter: 3. Save the text file as firstmail.php and load it in your browser. You should see a blank page and should receive an e-mail shortly at the address entered as the first parameter. 326 Chapter 11
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11 Sending E-mail So far, the chapters in this book have walked you through the creation of a comprehensive Web site. You have designed your site so that users can add and modify data, which is being stored in databases. You have built pages dynamically for your users, ensuring they have a rich and unique experience when they visit your Web site. You are even displaying helpful error messages in case something goes wrong. Now it s time to get a little more interactive with your users with e-mail. But we are not talking about standard e-mail, in which you write to your mother to tell her about the cool site you ve been building. (You did tell her, didn t you? She would be so proud.) We re talking about sending out e-mails using PHP. Why would you want a server-side scripting language to send e-mails? Perhaps you want to create a simple feedback form to be submitted to an administrator, as introduced in Chapter 9. Or maybe you want certain errors to be automatically e-mailed to the Webmaster. Or perhaps you would like to create an application that allows users to send their friends and family electronic postcards. (Nod your head in vigorous agreement here because that is exactly what you are going to do!) Specifically, this chapter covers: . Sending a basic e-mail . Sending an e-mail formatted with HTML . Multipart messages . Sending images . Getting confirmation Setting Up PHP to Use E-mail To be able to send e-mail with PHP, you need an e-mail server. This chapter doesn t delve too deeply into the setup of a mail server for PHP, but here are the basics.
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