Using $_GET[] causes issues with sending email with mail() - php

Question

In my website, it presents a list of program titles. When a title is clicked, it displays the content and an email form. The form just takes an email and mails the title as the subject and the content of the page in the email.
The link will pass a variable 'info'. 'info' contains the ID for the post in my database. The problem occurs when I click the submit button. It will not send an email, and refresh the page. This causes the url to loose the 'info' variable and loose all content on the page.
The page works perfectly if I hardcode the ID in the php and don't use $_GET['info'].
Is there something I am missing?
<?php
$id = $_GET['info'];
/*****************************************************
open conection to the mySQL database
******************************************************/
$configs = include('config.php');
//Create a connection
$con = mysqli_connect(
$configs['host'], //host
$configs['username'], //username
$configs['password'], //password
$configs['dbname'] //dbname
);
if (!$con)
{
die('Could not connect: ' . mysqli_error($con));
}
/*****************************************************
Populate the page
******************************************************/
$sql="
SELECT p.post_title, p.post_content
FROM they_posts AS p
WHERE p.ID='".$id."'
";
$result = mysqli_query($con,$sql);
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
{
/*Title*/
echo '<h1>'.$row['post_title'].'</h1><hr>';
/*content*/
echo '<h2>Details: </h2><br>'.$row['post_content'].'<br>';
$title= $row['post_title'];
$content = $row['post_content'];
/*****************************************************
E-mail Form
******************************************************/
include('includes/email_test.php');
}
?>
And this is the email_test.php
<div data-role="collapsible">
<h1>Send Reminder Email</h1>
<?php
function spamcheck($field)
{
// Sanitize e-mail address
$field=filter_var($field, FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
// Validate e-mail address
if(filter_var($field, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL))
{
return TRUE;
}
else
{
return FALSE;
}
}
// display form if user has not clicked submit
if (!isset($_POST["submit"]))
{
?>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"];?>">
Your Email: <input type="text" name="to"><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit Feedback">
</form>
<?php
}
else // the user has submitted the form
{
// Check if the "from" input field is filled out
if (isset($_POST["to"]))
{
// Check if "from" email address is valid
$receivecheck = spamcheck($_POST["to"]);
if ($receivecheck==FALSE)
{
echo "Invalid input";
}
else
{
$to = $_POST["to"]; //receiver
$subject = $title;
$message = $content;
// message lines should not exceed 70 characters (PHP rule), so wrap it
$message = wordwrap($message, 70);
// send mail
mail("$to",$subject,$message,"From: noreply#address.com\n");
echo "reminder has been sent";
}
}
}
?>
</div>
I have used isset($id) to display a back button for when submit is pressed. This will bring back the information but the email is still never sent.

Answer 1

In your scenario you must have info=post_id in your current url to get $_GET['info']
1st way:
Change your form action like this:
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"].'?info='.$_GET['info']; ?>">
then in action it will be :
/your_page.php?info=current_post_id
then in action page you can get info by $_GET['info']
2nd way:
or you can add extra hidden form field in your form for post_id like this:
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"];?>">
Your Email: <input type="text" name="to"><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit Feedback">
<input type="hidden" name="post_id" value="<?php echo $_GET['info'];">
</form>
After that In your action page you can get post_id by $_POST['post_id']
It should make sense!
Thanks

Answer 2

$_GET['info'] will only work if your form is defined with method='GET'.
If your form is defined with method='POST' then you need to use $_POST['info'].
If you want your code to work no matter whether the form is using GET or POST, then use $_REQUEST['info'].