Sending an email with PHP - php

Question

I am trying to use the php mail function to send an email. However, I am not sure how to structure the message part. I am processing an HTML form and I want that to be the message of the html. How could I wrap all of the output in a variable that I can pass as the message argument to the mail() function?
MY PHP:
//Contact Information
$array = $_POST['contact'];
echo '<hr>CONTACT INFORMATION<hr>';
foreach ($array as $key=>$value) {
if ($value != NULL) {
echo '<strong>' . $contact[$key] . '</strong><br/>';
echo $value . '<br/><br/>';
}
}
//Services Information
$array = $_POST['services'];
echo '<hr>SERVICES INFORMATION<hr>';
foreach ($array as $key=>$value) {
if ($value != NULL) {
echo '<strong>' . $services[$key] . '</strong><br/>';
echo $value . '<br/><br/>';
}
}
//Background Information
$array = $_POST['background'];
echo '<hr>BACKGROUND INFORMATION<hr>';
foreach ($array as $key=>$value) {
if ($value != NULL) {
echo '<strong>' . $background[$key] . '</strong><br/>';
echo $value . '<br/><br/>';
}
}
//Services Needed
$value = $_POST['servicesneeded'];
$value = rtrim($value, ", ");
echo '<hr>WHICH SERVICES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN?<hr>';
echo $value;
//Goals
$value = $_POST['goals'];
$value = rtrim($value, ", ");
echo '<hr>WHAT IS THE CORE PURPOSE OF YOUR PROJECT?<hr>';
echo $value;
if (!empty($_POST['goalsOther'])) {
echo '<br/>OTHER: ' . $_POST['goalsOther'];
}
........ I have about a dozen or so of these codeblocks

Answer 1

This isn't really a question about php mail, but more about concatenation. To solve your problem, create a variable, let's call it $message. Then, instead of echoing things out, append them to $message. So, instead of echo '<strong>' . $background[$key] . '</strong><br/>';, you'd have $message .= '<strong>' . $background[$key] . '</strong><br/>';.

Answer 2

I think it will be much easier for you to use SwiftMailer or PHPMailer
They both have a really easy to use API for sending emails using SMTP or php mail() function.
best of luck.

Answer 3

As mentioned by Brian Ray you should create a variable containing the message text that is later being sent using the mail() function. Depending on your server setup you may retrieve the content of the output buffer (things you have echo'd out before) and instead of sending it to the browser load it into a variable. Here's a sample how this could be achieved:
ob_start(); // enable output buffering
ob_clean(); // if content has been buffered before, discard it
// this would contain your echo() statements
echo(...);
...
// load the data from the output buffer into a variable
$message= ob_get_contents();
ob_clean(); // remove the buffered contents from the output buffer
// send the mail:
// PLEASE add security measures to avoid being used as spambot; I would strongly
// recommend to not allow any user input for the $recipient variable or
// additional header variable (if applicable)
mail($recipient, $subject, $message);
Things to keep in mind: output buffering is not always available and the output buffer differs from server to server. If the buffer limit is reached, the server will automatically flush the data (=send it to the browser), in that case you will find no or truncated data inside the output buffer. The method is OK in cases you are in full control of your server, do not allow direct access to the mail routine and can make sure that the buffer is sufficiently sized to contain the generated output.
Some additional reading on output control and ob_get_contents.