php mail() function attachment and body both empty - php

Question

I have been having difficulty trying to debug my php mail() code. I have included the entire PHP block below, so please forgive the formatting and sections that are not relevant (rCaptcha, field validation etc.)
The issue I am having is that when the emails come through... 1) There is no email body... and 2)The attachment is empty.
If I comment out this line "$body .= $my_attachment ;" I receive the expected text in the body, and unsurprisingly no attachment.
Can anyone spot my undoubtedly rookie mistakes?? I am expecting some replies suggesting I use a PHP mail library, which I am investigating now, but for my understanding and education I would appreciate some specific feedback pointing to my mistakes.
Thank you for your help.
<?php
/********************************************
/ Start processing the email
/*******************************************/
# We'll make a list of error messages in an array
$messages = array();
$upload_folder = "uploads/";
// 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;
// Change this to YOUR address
$recipient = XXX#XXX>COM;
$email = $_POST['myemail'];
$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$realName = $_POST['name'];
$subject = "WEB CONTACT: Careers" ;
$body = "--" . $separator . $eol;
$body .= "FROM: " . $realName .
"\r\nPHONE: " . $phone .
"\r\nEMAIL: " . $email .
"\r\nCONTACT ME VIA: " . $_POST['contact_me'] .
"\r\nMESSAGE:" . $_POST['mymessage'] ;
/********************************************
/ ATTACHMENT
/*******************************************/
//Get the uploaded file information
$name_of_uploaded_file =
basename($_FILES['uploaded_file']['name']);
//get the file extension of the file
$type_of_uploaded_file =
substr($name_of_uploaded_file,
strrpos($name_of_uploaded_file, '.') + 1);
$size_of_uploaded_file =
$_FILES["uploaded_file"]["size"]/1024;//size in KBs
//Settings
$max_allowed_file_size = 1024; // size in KB
$allowed_extensions = array("pdf", "doc", "txt");
//Validations
if($size_of_uploaded_file > $max_allowed_file_size )
{
$messages[] = "Size of file should be less than " . $max_allowed_file_size;
}
//------ Validate the file extension -----
$allowed_ext = false;
for($i=0; $i<sizeof($allowed_extensions); $i++)
{
if(strcasecmp($allowed_extensions[$i],$type_of_uploaded_file) == 0)
{
$allowed_ext = true;
}
}
if(!$allowed_ext)
{
$messages[] = "The uploaded file is not supported file type. ".
" Only the following file types are supported: ".implode(',',$allowed_extensions);
}
//copy the temp. uploaded file to uploads folder
$path_of_uploaded_file = $upload_folder . $name_of_uploaded_file;
$tmp_path = $_FILES["uploaded_file"]["tmp_name"];
if(is_uploaded_file($tmp_path))
{
if(!copy($tmp_path,$path_of_uploaded_file))
{
$messages[] = 'Error while copying the uploaded file';
}
}
// attachment
$file = $upload_folder . "/" . $name_of_uploaded_file;
$file_size = filesize($file);
$handle = fopen($file, "r");
$content = fread($handle, $file_size);
fclose($handle);
$content = chunk_split(base64_encode($content));
/***********************************************************
// reCAPTCHA your recaptcha secret key
***********************************************************/
$secretKey = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
if(isset($_POST['email']))
{
$email=$_POST['email'];
}
if(isset($_POST['comment']))
{
$email=$_POST['comment'];
}
if(isset($_POST['g-recaptcha-response']))
{
$captcha=$_POST['g-recaptcha-response'];
}
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$response=file_get_contents("https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify?secret=".$secretKey."&response=".$captcha."&remoteip=".$ip);
$responseKeys = json_decode($response,true);
if(intval($responseKeys["success"]) !== 1) {
$messages[] = "The reCaptcha Question was not answered correctly. I am begining to suspect that you are a robot.";
}
/***********************************************************
// END reCAPTCHA
***********************************************************/
/***********************************************************
// Message format validations
***********************************************************/
# Allow only reasonable email addresses
if (!preg_match("/^[\w\+\-.~]+\#[\-\w\.\!]+$/", $email)) {
$messages[] = "That is not a valid email address.";
}
# Allow only reasonable real phone numbers
if (!preg_match("/^[\+0-9\-\(\)\s]*$/", $phone)) {
$messages[] = "The phone number must only include numbers, spaces, brackets(), and '+'.";
}
# Allow only reasonable real names
if (!preg_match("/^[\w\ \+\-\'\"]+$/", $realName)) {
$messages[] = "The real name field must contain only " .
"alphabetical characters, numbers, spaces, and " .
"reasonable punctuation. We apologize for any inconvenience.";
}
# CAREFUL: don't allow hackers to sneak line breaks and additional
# headers into the message and trick us into spamming for them!
$subject = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', $subject);
# Make sure the subject isn't blank afterwards!
if (preg_match('/^\s*$/', $subject)) {
$messages[] = "Please choose area and office for your message.";
}
# Make sure the message has a body
if (preg_match('/^\s*$/', $body)) {
$messages[] = "Your message was blank. Did you mean to say " .
"something?";
}
if (count($messages)) {
# There were problems, so tell the user and
# don't send the message yet
foreach ($messages as $message) {
echo("<p>$message</p>\n");
}
echo("<p>Click the back button and correct the problems. " .
"Then click Send Your Message again.</p>");
}
//else
{
# Send the email - we're done
// main header (multipart mandatory)
$headers = "From: " . $realName . $eol;
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0" . $eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"" . $separator . "\"" . $eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" . $eol;
// message
$headers .= "--" . $separator . $eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"" . $eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit" . $eol;
$headers .= $body . $eol;
// attachment
$my_attachment ="";
$my_attachment .= "--" . $separator . $eol;
$my_attachment .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"" . $name_of_uploaded_file . "\"" . $eol;
$my_attachment .= "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . $name_of_uploaded_file . "\"" . $eol;
$my_attachment .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64" . $eol;
$my_attachment .= "Content-Disposition: attachment" . $eol;
$my_attachment .= $content . $eol;
$my_attachment .= "--" . $separator . "--";
$body .= $my_attachment ;
mail($recipient,
$subject,
$body,
$headers
);
echo("<p>Your message has been sent. Thank you!</p>\n");
}
?>

Answer 1

You can use PHPmailer class to send the mail. It is very easy option to send mails.
To use PHPMailer:
Download the PHPMailer script from here: http://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer
Extract the archive and copy the script's folder to a convenient place in your project.
Include the main script file -- require_once('path/to/file/class.phpmailer.php');
Now, sending emails with attachments goes from being insanely difficult to incredibly easy:
$email = new PHPMailer();
$email->From = 'you#example.com';
$email->FromName = 'Your Name';
$email->Subject = 'Message Subject';
$email->Body = $bodytext;
$email->AddAddress( 'destinationaddress#example.com' );
$file_to_attach = 'PATH_OF_YOUR_FILE_HERE';
$email->AddAttachment( $file_to_attach , 'NameOfFile.pdf' );
return $email->Send();
It's just that one line $email->AddAttachment(); to add an attachment.