Getting Mail body In PHP - php

Question

What I am doing:
First I am trying to get email and save the reply of user in my database.
For this I am using PHP imap method to get mail from my email address.
Code:
function get_email()
{
//define server, email , password
$server = '{server.example.com:143}INBOX';
$user_name = 'login';
$user_pass = 'password';
$mail = imap_open( $server , $user_name , $user_pass );
$headers = imap_num_msg($mail);//counting the no of msg
for ($i = 1; $i <= $headers ; $i++)
{
$body = imap_fetchbody($mail, $i ,1);
$body = explode(">",$body);
$body = $body['0'];
$body = substr($body, 0, -5);
echo "<pre>";
echo "/-/-/-/-/-/".$body."/-/-/-/-/-/";
echo "</pre>";
}
// close the connection
imap_close($mail);
}
Now:
The Result that i am getting from $body = imap_fetchbody($mail, $i ,$i); is this:
Okay What new in it.
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 4:56 PM, admin wrote:
> My name is admin!
>
>
but only wanted a the msg body that Okay What new in it. . So I explode() the massage and get the first element of array and remove the last line.
Problem:
I could not remove last line the current result of this program Is:
Okay What new in it.
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 4:56 PM, admin
Even I have add "/-/-/-/-/-/" symbol but the symbol are not showing.

Answer 1

Your approach is not ideal, and this answer will not be ideal either. Because frankly what you are trying to accomplish can be quite difficult, because previous messages in a thread on emails will be different depending on client used and you cannot trust the user either (the thread below the 'body' could have been altered by the user etc.)
Using explode by '>' is not ideal, because what if it is part of the message?
exploding by \n> is a no go too because a user might inline responses as #Michael_Berkovski said.
Anyways here is my solution:
$body = preg_replace('#(\n>.*?)+$#','',$body);
This will reduce the following:
This is the body
> And this is a comment within the body
Also just the body
>Previous messages
>here
>> Even indented who cares?
to:
This is the body
> And this is a comment within the body
Also just the body

Answer 2

For trying very hard I come to a solution that ask user to reply with '#' at the end of the massage. As I notice there are different types of replies from different mailing services but all services show reply first.
Code:
$msgno = imap_num_msg($mail);
for ($i = 1; $i <= $msgno ; $i++)
{
$body = imap_fetchbody($mail, $i ,1);
$body = explode("#",$body);
$body = $body['0'];
echo $body;
echo "<br>";
}
From this I got my desire result.