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PHP Mail

The mail() function sends an email by passing the necessary parameters of to, subject, message, additional_headers, and additional_parameters. It returns TRUE if the mail was successfully accepted for delivery or FALSE otherwise. This function opens an SMTP socket to send each email, so it is not suitable for sending large volumes of email and alternative methods like PEAR are recommended for that use case.

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Abdul Hameed
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167 views

PHP Mail

The mail() function sends an email by passing the necessary parameters of to, subject, message, additional_headers, and additional_parameters. It returns TRUE if the mail was successfully accepted for delivery or FALSE otherwise. This function opens an SMTP socket to send each email, so it is not suitable for sending large volumes of email and alternative methods like PEAR are recommended for that use case.

Uploaded by

Abdul Hameed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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mail

(PHP 4, PHP 5)
mail Send mail

Description
bool mail ( string $to , string $subject , string $message [, string
$additional_headers [, string$additional_parameters ]] )
Sends an email.

Parameters
to

Receiver, or receivers of the mail.


The formatting of this string must comply with RFC 2822. Some examples are:

[email protected]

[email protected], [email protected]

User <[email protected]>

User <[email protected]>, Another User <[email protected]>

subject

Subject of the email to be sent.


Caution
Subject must satisfy RFC 2047.
message

Message to be sent.
Each line should be separated with a CRLF (\r\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). If outside data are used to
compose this header, the data should be sanitized so that no unwanted headers
could be injected.
Note:
does not have mail header injection protection.
Therefore, users must make sure specified headers are safe and contains
headers only. i.e. Never start mail body by putting multiple newlines.
additional_headers

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 Unix mail
transfer agents (most notably qmail) 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 additional flags as


command line options to the program configured to be used when sending mail,
as defined by 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.
This parameter is escaped by escapeshellcmd() internally to prevent command
execution. escapeshellcmd() prevents command execution, but allows to add
addtional parameters. For security reasons, it is recommended for the user to
sanitize this parameter to avoid adding unwanted parameters to the shell
command.
Since escapeshellcmd() is applied automatically, some characters that are
allowed as email addresses by internet RFCs cannot be used. mail() can not
allow such characters, so in programs where the use of such characters is
required, alternative means of sending emails (such as using a framework or a
library) is recommended.
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.

Changelog

Version Description
4.2.3 The additional_parameters parameter is disabled in safe_mode and the mail() function will expose a
used.

Examples
Example #1 Sending mail.
Using mail() to send a simple email:
<?php
// The message
$message = "Line 1\r\nLine 2\r\nLine 3";
// In case any of our lines are larger than 70 characters, we should use wordw
rap()
$message = wordwrap($message, 70, "\r\n");
// 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:
<?php
$to

= '[email protected]';

$subject = 'the subject';


$message = 'hello';
$headers = 'From: [email protected]' . "\r\n" .
'Reply-To: [email protected]' . "\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>

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.
<?php
mail('[email protected]', 'the subject', 'the message', null,
'[email protected]');
?>

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:
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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