mail
(PHP 4, PHP 5) mail — Send mail
Description
bool mail
( string $to
, string $subject
, string $message
[, string $additional_headers
[, string $additional_parameters
]] )
Parameters
-
to
-
Receiver, or receivers of the mail.
The formatting of this string must comply with
» RFC 2822. Some examples are:
-
subject
-
Subject of the email to be sent.
Caution
This must not contain any newline characters, or the mail may not be
sent properly.
-
message
-
Message to be sent.
Each line should be separated with a LF (\n). Lines should not be larger
than 70 characters.
Caution
(Windows only) When PHP is talking to a SMTP server directly, if a full
stop is found on the start of a line, it is removed. To counter-act this,
replace these occurrences with a double dot.
<?php
$text = str_replace("\n.", "\n..", $text);
?>
-
additional_headers
(optional)
-
String to be inserted at the end of the email header.
This is typically used to add extra headers (From, Cc, and Bcc).
Multiple extra headers should be separated with a CRLF (\r\n).
Note:
When sending mail, the mail must contain
a From header. This can be set with the
additional_headers
parameter, or a default
can be set in php.ini.
Failing to do this will result in an error
message similar to Warning: mail(): "sendmail_from" not
set in php.ini or custom "From:" header missing.
The From header sets also
Return-Path under Windows.
Note:
If messages are not received, try using a LF (\n) only.
Some poor quality Unix mail transfer agents replace LF by CRLF
automatically (which leads to doubling CR if CRLF is used).
This should be a last resort, as it does not comply with
» RFC 2822.
-
additional_parameters
(optional)
-
The additional_parameters
parameter
can be used to pass an additional parameter to the program configured
to use when sending mail using the sendmail_path
configuration setting. For example, this can be used to set the
envelope sender address when using sendmail with the
-f sendmail option.
The user that the webserver runs as should be added as a trusted user to the
sendmail configuration to prevent a 'X-Warning' header from being added
to the message when the envelope sender (-f) is set using this method.
For sendmail users, this file is /etc/mail/trusted-users.
Return Values
Returns TRUE if the mail was successfully accepted for delivery, FALSE otherwise.
It is important to note that just because the mail was accepted for delivery,
it does NOT mean the mail will actually reach the intended destination.
Examples
Example #1 Sending mail.
Using mail() to send a simple email:
<?php
// The message
$message = "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3";
// In case any of our lines are larger than 70 characters, we should use wordwrap()
$message = wordwrap($message, 70);
// Send
mail('[email protected]', 'My Subject', $message);
?>
Example #2 Sending mail with extra headers.
The addition of basic headers, telling the MUA
the From and Reply-To addresses:
Example #3 Sending mail with an additional command line parameter.
The additional_parameters
parameter
can be used to pass an additional parameter to the program configured
to use when sending mail using the sendmail_path.
Example #4 Sending HTML email
It is also possible to send HTML email with mail().
<?php
// multiple recipients
$to = '[email protected]' . ', '; // note the comma
$to .= '[email protected]';
// subject
$subject = 'Birthday Reminders for August';
// message
$message = '
<html>
<head>
<title>Birthday Reminders for August</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Here are the birthdays upcoming in August!</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Person</th><th>Day</th><th>Month</th><th>Year</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Joe</td><td>3rd</td><td>August</td><td>1970</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sally</td><td>17th</td><td>August</td><td>1973</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
';
// To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set
$headers = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";
// Additional headers
$headers .= 'To: Mary <[email protected]>, Kelly <[email protected]>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'From: Birthday Reminder <[email protected]>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Cc: [email protected]' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Bcc: [email protected]' . "\r\n";
// Mail it
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>
Note:
If intending to send HTML or otherwise Complex mails, it is recommended
to use the PEAR package » PEAR::Mail_Mime.
Notes
Note:
The Windows implementation of mail() differs in many
ways from the Unix implementation. First, it doesn't use a local binary
for composing messages but only operates on direct sockets which means a
MTA is needed listening on a network socket (which
can either on the localhost or a remote machine).
Second, the custom headers like
From:,
Cc:,
Bcc: and
Date: are
not interpreted by the
MTA in the first place, but are parsed by PHP.
As such, the to
parameter should not be an address
in the form of "Something <[email protected]>". The
mail command may not parse this properly while talking with
the MTA.
Note:
Email with attachments and special
types of content (e.g. HTML) can be sent using this function. This is
accomplished via MIME-encoding - for more information, see this
»
Zend article or the »
PEAR Mime Classes.
Note:
It is worth noting that the mail() function is not
suitable for larger volumes of email in a loop. This function opens
and closes an SMTP socket for each email, which is not very efficient.
For the sending of large amounts of email, see the
» PEAR::Mail, and
» PEAR::Mail_Queue packages.
Note:
The following RFCs may be useful:
» RFC 1896,
» RFC 2045,
» RFC 2046,
» RFC 2047,
» RFC 2048,
» RFC 2049, and
» RFC 2822.
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