I am attempting to create a working PHP contact form - php

Question

At the bottom of this page under the section 'Quick Message' in the lower right there is a a contact form I'm trying to fix.
http://danielgruttadaro.chapter7ny.com
The form does not allow submissions that do not have all three sections filled out. However, I am receiving the error: 'sorry unexpected error please try again later' when the form is properly filled out. Below is the relevant html and php. Thanks for your help.
<form method="post" action="contact.php" id="contactform">
<div class="form">
<input class="col-md-6" type="text" name="name" placeholder="Name">
<input class="col-md-6" type="text" name="email" placeholder="E-mail">
<textarea class="col-md-12" name="message" rows="4" placeholder="Message"></textarea>
<input type="submit" id="submit" class="btn" value="Send">
</div>
Here is the php:
<?php
//Retrieve form data.
//GET - user submitted data using AJAX
//POST - in case user does not support javascript, we'll use POST instead
$name = ($_GET['name']) ? $_GET['name'] : $_POST['name'];
$email = ($_GET['email']) ?$_GET['email'] : $_POST['email'];
$message = ($_GET['message']) ?$_GET['message'] : $_POST['message'];
//flag to indicate which method it uses. If POST set it to 1
if ($_POST) $post=1;
//Simple server side validation for POST data, of course, you should validate the email
if (!$name) $errors[count($errors)] = 'Please enter your name.';
if (!$email) $errors[count($errors)] = 'Please enter your email.';
if (!$message) $errors[count($errors)] = 'Please enter your message.';
//if the errors array is empty, send the mail
if (!$errors) {
//recipient - replace your email here
$to = 'dan#chapter7ny.com';
//sender - from the form
$from = $name . ' <' . $email . '>';
//subject and the html message
$subject = 'Message from ' . $name;
$message = 'Name: ' . $name . '<br/><br/>
Email: ' . $email . '<br/><br/>
Message: ' . nl2br($message) . '<br/>';
//send the mail
$result = sendmail($to, $subject, $message, $from);
//if POST was used, display the message straight away
if ($_POST) {
if ($result) echo 'Thank you! We have received your message.';
else echo 'Sorry, unexpected error. Please try again later';
//else if GET was used, return the boolean value so that
//ajax script can react accordingly
//1 means success, 0 means failed
} else {
echo $result;
}
//if the errors array has values
} else {
//display the errors message
for ($i=0; $i<count($errors); $i++) echo $errors[$i] . '<br/>';
echo 'Back';
exit;
}
//Simple mail function with HTML header
function sendmail($to, $subject, $message, $from) {
$headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type:text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: ' . $from . "\r\n";
$result = mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);
if ($result) return 1;
else return 0;
}
?>

Answer 1

Most likely the machine that is running php doesn't have a mail server set up as well. The mail function requires that. You can use a library like:
https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer
and use an existing gmail account to send your email:
http://phpmailer.worxware.com/?pg=examplebgmail
which will let you mail yourself whatever they type in. This is what I use in almost all of my projects.
You can also use PEAR:
https://pear.php.net/package/Mail
Which I have also had luck with in the past. Godspeed.