Send Mail from File contents HTML or TXT as needed -- Geir??

Geir, thanks for replying, and please, get some sleep, then reply :))

Can't ask the user for their mail preferences, since most don;t know.  So assume we have to send MIME for HTML and TXT and they receive whatever their browser wants to get ....

As for the content of the mail, just ASSUME I will create a complete HTML file (and a complete TXT file) called "file1" (either .html or .txt) to be read in as $msg.  I have no problem composing those files, what I am not sure of is the code to "send-mail" those files using PHP.  The files are just what the user will see on screen, nothing more, nothing less, so I'm not sure how to send it.  

Thanks for replying, I MUCH appreciate it !!!!  How is the weather in N.E. Europe ??  In the west U.S here, it is hot and dry, too hot, and there are many bushfires -- definite proof of global warming !!!   Cheers....

If you want to send both HTML and plaintext-mails use http://phpmailer.sf.net for that. If you have the HTML-text you can get a plain-text via the striptags function in php.

like the following
$body = file_get_contents(....)

$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->Body    = $body;
$mail->AltBody = striptags($body);

hernst42 -- standard Linux shared hosting, don't know if any add-on modules can run.  I saw somwhere, a routine to just do the two MIME types, HTML and TXT together, can't find it now -- any ideas on in-line send of both as different MIME types, which lets the user's browser/mail client decide what to accept??

I can only "striptags()" to a certain point -- I need to preserve the "proportional font" or "variable pitch font" because that is the only way the TXT file will come out lined up correct.  So striptags may not work.  Ideas?

install pear: http://builder.com.com/5100-6371-5163311.html
use mai_mime and mail: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.mail-mime.example.php

http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.php

With plain text-files you can't do any formating with fonts. That is only possible with HTML- or RTF mails. If you your are using phpmailer the clients browser/mailer take either the plain text or the HTML depending on the user's preference.

You can download phpmailer and include it in your php-directory (there is no need to bother your webhoster). Its completly written in PHP.

I second hernst42's suggestion about using PHPMailer for your need.
The documentation and examples found on their site should make it straightforward to start using.
I've never personally used it before, so I have no experience to share I'm afraid.

-Geir

I already looked at PHP mailer weeks ago, and yes it is a possibility, but not right now.

I've found that I eventually figure everything out, even the "can't be done"s, like sending a PHP page to a different window on the page.  I come to this TA to help speed up the process. I think for right now I'm not going to bother with the unformatted text file, just do the HTML and get that working first.

So Geir, in a previous question, I think you showed how to open another file and read it into a $msg variable and mail it.  Can you go over that again, please, in the following context --

The format file, say called 'htmlmsg.php' needs to be read into a file that will insert the values into its variables -- $name, $address, $city, $state, $zip -- and so forth.  The htmlmsg.php will have those variables names in it, just as listed, so the job of the reading file (which holds the VALUES of those variables in it's page), will be to (1) read in the other file (2) substitute values for the variables, then (3) mail it to two addresses, $sender and $receiver.

Thae point of the "format file" is to keep the format of the message separate from the PHP code, for obvious reasons.  You already gave much of the code in a previous question, maybe you would be kind enough to pull it together here ...  Any further details needed, just ask .... and many thanks ....

Looking back over your answers on the prev. question, I might be able to get a lot of it from that alone, but anything else you can add would be great, especially about inserting the values in the variables.  Thx.

OK here is an example:

say you have the following two files:
names.txt (containing variable names, one pr line)
values.txt (containing variable values, one pr line)
AND
line 1 of values.txt is the value for the variable named on line 1 of names.txt

--contents of names.txt--
banana
apple
pear
--contents of values.txt--
1
2
3

You can use the following php script to get it:
<?
$variable_names = "names.txt";
$variable_values = "values.txt";

$f1 = file_get_contents($variable_names);
$names = explode("\n", $f1);

$f2 = file_get_contents($variable_values);
$values = explode("\n", $f2);

for ($i=0;$i<count($values)-1;$i++){
        echo "I have {$values[$i]} {$names[$i]}<br>";
}

?>

This would output:
I have 1 banana
I have 2 apple
I have 3 pear

Is this along the lines you were thinking?

-Geir

No Geir, sorry for not explaining myself clearer.  It could well be that PHP will automatically do this, so I don't have to replace any $variables with "values".

In the layout page, I have a whole series of -- <?php echo $Email; ?> <?php echo $Name; ?>

but those variables are not gotten by that page at all.  The emailing.php page has the values of the variables  and when I "read in" the layout page into a single variable $msg in the emailing page (as you suggested in the previous Q) -- will those values be echoed correctly, or do I have to do something special to insert them?

On a related issue, There are about 20 such variables, $Name, $Address, etc.  in the emailing.php page -- is there a simple way to transfer them to another page in a PHP array?  I can put them all in a FORM and send them that way, but it would be a lot simpler to pass the next page one PHP array containing all the $Vars.

OK, something like this?

--emailing.php--
<?
$name = "sciwriter";
$section = "PHP";
?>

--output.php--
<? echo $email; ?>
<? echo $section; ?>

To make the variable values known in output.php simply:

--output.php--
<?
include("emailing.php");
?>
<p><? echo $email; ?></p>
<p><? echo $section; ?></p>


That would print out:
sciwriter
PHP

-Geir

Yep, that's kind of what I suspected -- use include instead of reading the file in.  That makes life a WHOLE lot simpler, because when I find out how to split the email (MIME is based on the header sent in the mail), I can do a conditional include -- html or txt, depending on MIME type.

But I still have to get the ENTIRE formatted file "htmlmail.php"  -- read into a single variable, "$msg", in order for the mail module to send it, correct?  I see this as maybe a limitation of that mail() routine, that you can't pass it an entire file name, rather than a $msg -- but that's probably because I don't see a way yet to get around it.  Any ideas, using "include()", as to how to get the included file ready to email?

Thanks again...

hernst42 if you are still there, do you want to take a stab at answering the "on a related issue" Q above?

GREAT !!

<?
$php_path = "/usr/bin/php";  
$the_file = "output.php";
$msg = "{$php_path} -f {$the_file}";
?>

That is the crucial part I was missing.  Let me give it a shot and I will get back.  Many thanks ...

Geir -- quick Q, as I develop this -- need to send to at LEAST 2 email addresses --

So in -- mail("to_address", "subject", $file_contents) or die ("Unable to send the mail");
how do you get 2-3 email addresses in the "to_address"?
And rather than die()  -- how do you send this as an error to a message in the file itself (i.e. don't want to terminate the PHP file, just want to tell the user there was a problem.)   Don't see this in the PHP docs.

Thanks for your help ....

Geir, hernst42 and JKlatte -- I apologize for the delay in responding, but with my account messed up, I could not till now.  

Geir, although your 3:11 PM "working example" gave the overall layout I needed, the crucial part --
$msg = "{$php_path} -f {$the_file}";
did not actually work -- all I got in $msg was the literal string of PHP directory + file path -- no contents.

It was Hernst42's code --
ob_start();
include 'htmlmail.php';
$text = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

That actually DID get the HTML file into the $msg variable correctly.  Thanks hernst42, nice work, friend.

Finally JKlatte's heredoc is a valuable other way to pipe the MIME/split input into the stream.

Consequently, I am splitting points among you as fairly as I can.  Hope this is OK.  This has been a great question with great input.  If I had 5000 points to split on this Q, I would do it.

Lastly, you probably won't see me here any more.  I've enjoyed the few bright experts who have replied to my questions, but the others are too much to deal with, sorry.  You can always contact me if you wish.

Best of luck to you three, and many thanks for contributing so much to the questions I've asked in PHP.