PHP tweaking on a mail form - php

Question

I got some help with an email form, and I feel that I am almost there as the script sends an email but need a few tweaks before I put the form up. Here is my code right now:
index.html:
<div id="main">
<form method="post" action="mailer.php">
<div id="text">
Please enter your email address.
</div>
<input type="text" name="q" id="search" />
<input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Go!" />
</form>
</div>
mailer.php:
<?php
$email = addcslashes($_REQUEST['q']) ;
if ($email==FALSE){
echo "You forgot to enter your email";
}
else
mail( "example#gmail.com", "E-Mail entered",
"E-Mail entered: $email");
header( "Location: http://www.example.com/thankyou.html" );
?>
A few issues I am running into:
The email being sent does not actually include the email entered, the email comes from Apache#ipaddress.ec2.internal and the Body is Email Entered:
which does not include the email string - is there something buggy with the code?
Also, my if statement doesn't seem to work. Even if I leave the box black, it still assumes a valid email address was sent.
Finally, is there a parameter that sees if the address is in the correct format? ie: includes the # the . and the domain?
Many thanks for any help!

Answer 1

First off, you can use filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) to test the submitted address. This function returns false if it's not valid. Second, mail() requires a 4th parameter to assign a return address in your message header. Here's an example:
mail(
'to#address.com',
'Subject',
'Message Body',
'From: from#address.com'
)
Regarding your if/else statement, test $_POST['q'] == NULL first, then change $email = addcslashes($_REQUEST['q']); to $email = str_replace(array('\'', '"'), '', $_POST['q']); - no real reason to escape characters in this case. Just take em' out.
Edit: This is what your code should look like:
$email = str_replace(array('\'', '"'), '', $_POST['q']);
$isValid = filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);
if ( $_POST['q'] == NULL ) {
echo "You forgot to enter your email";
} elseif ( $isValid == FALSE ) {
echo "Please enter a valid email address";
} else {
mail(
'example#gmail.com', // Your address that you want the message sent to
'Subject',
'Message Body',
'From: ' . $email // The address collected
);
header( "Location: http://www.example.com/thankyou.html" );
}
Does that make a little more sense?
Do note that because of modern spam filters, this method may not make it to every recipient. Creating useful email headers can be a bit of an art-form that takes some practice.

Answer 2

To change the "from field", try something like this:
// Additional headers
$headers .= 'To: Mary <mary#example.com>, Kelly <kelly#example.com>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: Birthday Reminder <birthday#example.com>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Cc: birthdayarchive#example.com' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Bcc: birthdaycheck#example.com' . "\r\n";
// Mail it
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
As far as your if statement, check the $_REQUEST variable first:
if (isempty($_REQUEST['q']) { echo "forgot to enter email"; }
Finally, here's a link to a method to validate email addresses: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9585

Answer 3

Try this for checking if the email is set.
if(isset($_REQUEST['q'])) ..
As far as the "Email Sender". I believe you are looking for the "From" header.. that can be done like this..
$header = "From: Your Name <example#gmail.com>";
mail($to, $subject, $message, $header);
More details are available at http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php