warning in base64_encode of in phpmailer class - php

Question

i am using phpmailer to send mail with attachment, which is sending mail with blank attachment and it shows following warning
Warning: base64_encode() expects parameter 1 to be string, object given in D:\xampp\htdocs\contactform\class\class.phpmailer.php on line 1958
i retrieve file from database which is stored as BLOB file
<?php
require 'config.php';
require 'class/class.phpmailer.php';
$message = '';
$errors ='';
$firstName = $lastName = $emailId = $mobileNumber = $add = '';
function clean_text($string)
{
$string = trim($string);
$string = stripslashes($string);
$string = htmlspecialchars($string);
return $string;
}
$firstName = $conn->real_escape_string($_POST['fname']);
$lastName = $conn->real_escape_string($_POST['lname']);
$emailId = $conn->real_escape_string($_POST['email']);
$mobileNumber = $conn->real_escape_string($_POST['mobile']);
$add = $conn->real_escape_string($_POST['address']);
$fileName = $conn->real_escape_string($_FILES['myfile']['name']);
$tmp_name = $_FILES['myfile']['tmp_name'];
$name = $_FILES['myfile']['name'];
$size = $_FILES['myfile']['size'];
if(isset($_POST["submit"]))
{
if((isset($_POST['fname'])&& $_POST['fname'] !='' ))
{
$sql = "INSERT INTO form (fname, lname, email,mobile,address,file,filename,created) VALUES('".$firstName."','".$lastName."','".$emailId."', '".$mobileNumber."','".$add."','".$fileName."','".$name."',now())";
if(!$result = $conn->query($sql)){
die('There was an error running the query [' . $conn->error . ']');
}
else
{
echo "Registered successfully\n ";
}
}
else
{
echo "Please fill Name and Email";
}
$query="select file from form where email='$emailId'";
$result=$conn->query($query) or die('There was an error1 running the query [' . $conn->error . ']');
$result1="resume.pdf";
$encoding='base64';
$type=" application/pdf";
$message ="hi";
$mail = new PHPMailer;
$mail->IsSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.gmail.com';
$mail->Port = '587';
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = '****';
$mail->Password = '****';
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->From = $_POST["email"];
$mail->FromName = $_POST["fname"];
$mail->AddAddress('***');
$mail->WordWrap = 50;
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->AddStringAttachment($result,$result1,$encoding,$type).
$mail->Subject = 'Applicant Profile';
$mail->Body = $message;
if($mail->Send())
{
$message = '<div class="alert alert-success">Application Successfully Submitted</div>';
}
else
{
$message = '<div class="alert alert-danger">There is an Error</div>';
echo $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
}
print_r($message);
?>

Answer 1

You're getting this error because $result contains a MySQLi result set object (mysqli_result), not a string. You need to extract the field value before you use it. Also PHPMailer will figure out the encoding and content type for you from the filename you provide (in $result1), so you don't need to set them yourself, like this:
$row = $result->fetch_row();
$mail->addStringAttachment($row[0], $result1);
A separate issue is that you're using a very old version of PHPMailer which has security holes and many bugs, and you've based your code on an obsolete example, so get the latest.