Codeigniter and Mandrill api, unable to send email - php

Question

I am trying to email by using Mandrill with CodeIgniter. I can use Mandrill API as described in their documentation:
require_once(mandrill/Mandrill.php);
$Mandrill = new Mandrill($apikey);
$params = array(
"html" => "<p>\r\n\tHi Adam,</p>\r\n<p>\r\n\tThanks for registering.</p>\r\n<p>etc etc</p>",
"text" => null,
"from_email" => "xxx#xxx.example.com",
"from_name" => "chris french",
"subject" => "Your recent registration",
"to" => array(array("email" => xxx#yyy.example.com")),
"track_opens" => true,
"track_clicks" => true,
"auto_text" => true
);
$Mandrill->messages->send($params, true));
This is pretty straight forward, but when I try to send Mandrill mail via CodeIgniter, I get error as result; here is my code:
$this->load->library('mandrill/Mandrill');
$this->Mandrill->apikey($apikey);
//...
//All other options
$this->Mandrill->messages->send($params, true));
Library is loading successfully, sending email is where I get error.
Error thrown:
Fatal error: Call to a member function send() on null

Answer 1

I guess you load mandrill class wrongly in order to make it "CodeIgniter way" do as follows:
put class (the file mandrill.php and folder mandrill in application/libraries folder) see picture
load class using $this->load->library('mandrill', array($apikey));
fix all typos in $params (you are missing ", last line has two brackets ))in the end)
modify mandrill.php so it accepts array as parameter in constructor; see SOLUTION part of answer
use API as in tutorials from Mandrill (send, ping... whatever)
valid code
$this->load->library('mandrill', array($apikey)); //load mandrill and provide apikey
$params = array(
"html" => "<p>\r\n\tHi Adam,</p>\r\n<p>\r\n\tThanks for registering.</p>\r\n<p>etc etc</p>",
"text" => null,
"from_email" => "xxx#xxx.example.com",
"from_name" => "chris french",
"subject" => "Your recent registration",
"to" => array(array("email" => "xxx#yyy.example.com")),
"track_opens" => true,
"track_clicks" => true,
"auto_text" => true
);
$this->mandrill->messages->send($params, true);
Edit (comments)
please note: I removed real api-key = MY_KEY, email from = EMAIL_FROM, email to = EMAIL_TO
$msg = array(
"html" => "The Message",
"text" => null,
"from_email" => "EMAIL_FROM",
"from_name" => "John Doe",
"subject" => "Acme",
"to" => array(array("email" => "EMAIL_TO")),
"track_opens" => true,
"track_clicks" => true,
"auto_text" => true
);
require_once APPPATH.'libraries/Mandrill.php';
$mandrill = new Mandrill('MY_KEY');
var_dump($mandrill->messages->send($msg, true));
//var_dump($mandrill->users->ping());
$this->load->library('Mandrill', array("MY_KEY")); //load mandrill and provide apikey
var_dump($this->mandrill->messages->send($msg, true));
//var_dump($this->mandrill->users->ping());
Above code sends identical email twice (using different load methods); response && few var_dump() are:
method using require_once...
object(Mandrill)[14] //setup
public 'apikey' => string 'MY_KEY' (length=22)
public 'ch' => resource(40, curl)
public 'root' => string 'https://mandrillapp.com/api/1.0/' (length=32)
public 'debug' => boolean false
array (size=1) //this is response
0 =>
array (size=4)
'email' => string 'EMAIL_TO' (length=24)
'status' => string 'sent' (length=4)
'_id' => string 'f7af72b1e1364a58a2eb302e94a1dc1e' (length=32)
'reject_reason' => null
method using $this->load->library();
object(Mandrill)[30] //setup
public 'apikey' => string 'MY_KEY' (length=22)
public 'ch' => resource(41, curl)
public 'root' => string 'https://mandrillapp.com/api/1.0/' (length=32)
public 'debug' => boolean false
array (size=1) //this is response
0 =>
array (size=4)
'email' => string 'EMAIL_TO' (length=24)
'status' => string 'sent' (length=4)
'_id' => string '5965091637fa42dd98b40a934523022e' (length=32)
'reject_reason' => null
SOLUTION
In order to make it work I changed the way how API_KEY is retrieved in Mandrill constructor, since CodeIgniter's loader is sending parameter to constructor as array()
Mandrill.php
public function __construct($apikey=null) {
if(is_array($apikey)) $apikey = $apikey[0]; //added this line
if(!$apikey) $apikey = getenv('MANDRILL_APIKEY');
if(!$apikey) $apikey = $this->readConfigs();
//... rest of the file
Another option is CI-Mandrill, note that it uses version 1.0; installation time ~5 minutes or less