Chapter 22

How to send email

and
access other web sites

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 1
 Objectives
Applied
1. Install and use the PEAR Mail package to send email messages
from your web applications.
2. Use the cURL library to work with the data on web sites that
provide APIs for doing that.
Knowledge
1. Describe the use of the PEAR Mail package, including its static
factory method and its mailer object.
2. Describe the use of a helper function for sending email with the
PEAR Mail package.
3. Describe the use of the cURL library for working with the data on
a web site that provides an API for doing that.

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 2
 How email is sent
Sender SMTP Server
Email Client Email server

Sender composes message on email

client program. Client uses SMTP to
send message to sender’s email server. Sender’s email server uses
SMTP to send message to SMTP
Receiver’s email client uses POP3 or receiver’s email server.
IMAP to download message from email
server. Receiver can then read
message.
Receiver POP3 Server
Email Client Email server
IMAP

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 3
 Protocols used in sending email
 SMTP
 POP3
 IMAP
Terms
 email client
 email server

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 4
 Limitations of the built-in PHP mail function
 You must modify the php.ini file to change email servers.
 You cannot use an encrypted connection to the email server.
 You cannot provide a username and password when connecting to
the email server.

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 5
 How to install the PEAR Mail package in Windows
1. Click the Start menu, select the ProgramsAccessories group,
and click on Command Prompt to open a command prompt
window.
2. In the Command Prompt window, type these commands:
cd \xampp\php
pear install --alldeps Mail
exit

How to install the PEAR Mail package in Mac OS X

1. In Finder, open the Applications folder, open the Utilities folder,
and double click the Terminal icon to open a Terminal window.
2. In the Terminal window, type these commands:
cd /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin
sudo ./pear install --alldeps Mail
exit

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 6
 How to create a Gmail account for email testing
1. If you don’t already have a Gmail account, create one. To do that,
you can go to www.gmail.com, click on the “Create an Account”
link, and follow the instructions.
2. Login to your Gmail account and go to your Inbox.
3. Click the “Settings” link at the top of the page.
4. On the Settings page, click the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” link.
5. In the POP download section, select the “Enable POP for all mail”
option.
6. Click the “Save Changes” button.

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 7
 Configuration info for a Gmail SMTP server
Setting Value
Host name smtp.gmail.com
Encryption SSL
Port number 465
Authentication Yes
Username [email protected]
Password yourGmailPassword

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 8
 Step 1: Load the PEAR Mail package
require_once 'Mail.php';

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 9
 Step 2: Set the parameters for the mailer object
Example 1: A simple SMTP server
$options = array();
$options['host'] = 'mail.example.com';

Example 2: An SMTP server with authentication

$options = array();
$options['host'] = 'mail.example.com';
$options['auth'] = true;
$options['username'] = '[email protected]';
$options['password'] = 'Sup3r*S3cr3+';

Example 3: SMTP server with authentication

and SSL encryption
$options = array();
$options['host'] = 'ssl://mail.example.com';
$options['port'] = 465;
$options['auth'] = true;
$options['username'] = '[email protected]';
$options['password'] = 'Sup3r*S3cr3+';

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 10
 Step 3: Create the mailer object
$mailer = Mail::factory('smtp', $options);

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 11
 Step 4: Send the message
// 1. Set the SMTP headers
$headers = array();
$headers['From'] = '[email protected]';
$headers['To'] = '[email protected],
[email protected]';
$headers['Cc'] = '[email protected]';
$headers['Bcc'] = '[email protected]';
$headers['Subject'] = 'How to use PEAR Mail';

// 2. Set the recipient list

$recipients = '[email protected],
[email protected], ';
$recipients .= '[email protected], [email protected]';

// 3. Set the text for the body of the message

$body =
"The Murach PHP and MySQL book has a chapter on\n";
$body .=
"how to use the PEAR Mail package to send email.";

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 12
 Step 4: Send the message (continued)
// 4. Send the message
$result = $mailer->send($recipients, $headers, $body);

// 5. Check the result and display an error if one exists

if (PEAR::isError($result)) {
$error =
'Error sending email: ' . $result->getMessage();
echo htmlspecialchars($error);
}

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 13
 How to use HTML formatting
in the body of the message
// 1. Set the Content-type header
$headers['Content-type'] = 'text/html';

// 2. Use HTML tags to format the body of the message

$body = '<p>The Murach PHP and MySQL book has a chapter
on how to use the
<a href="http://pear.php.net/Mail/">
PEAR Mail package
</a>
to send email.
</p>';

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 14
 The message.php file (a helper function)
<?php
require_once 'Mail.php';
require_once 'Mail/RFC822.php';

function send_email($to, $from, $subject, $body,

$is_body_html = false) {
if (! valid_email($to)) {
throw new Exception('This To address is invalid: ' .
htmlspecialchars($to));
}
if (! valid_email($from)) {
throw new Exception('This From address is invalid: ' .
htmlspecialchars($from));
}

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 15
 The message.php file (continued)
$smtp = array();
// **** You must change the following to match your
// **** SMTP server and account information.
$smtp['host'] = 'ssl://smtp.gmail.com';
$smtp['port'] = 465;
$smtp['auth'] = true;
$smtp['username'] = '[email protected]';
$smtp['password'] = 'supersecret';

$mailer = Mail::factory('smtp', $smtp);

if (PEAR::isError($mailer)) {
throw new Exception('Could not create mailer.');
}

// Add the email address to an array of all recipients

$recipients = array();
$recipients[] = $to;

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 16
 The message.php file (continued)
// Set the headers
$headers = array();
$headers['From'] = $from;
$headers['To'] = $to;
$headers['Subject'] = $subject;
if ($is_body_html) {
$headers['Content-type'] = 'text/html';
}

// Send the email

$result = $mailer->send($recipients, $headers, $body);

// Check the result and throw an error if one exists

if (PEAR::isError($result)) {
throw new Exception('Error sending email: ' .
htmlspecialchars($result->getMessage()) );
}
}

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 17
 The message.php file (continued)
function valid_email($email) {
$emailObjects = Mail_RFC822::parseAddressList($email);
if (PEAR::isError($emailObjects)) return false;

// Get mailbox and host parts of first email object

$mailbox = $emailObjects[0]->mailbox;
$host = $emailObjects[0]->host;

// Make sure mailbox and host parts aren't too long

if (strlen($mailbox) > 64) return false;
if (strlen($host) > 255) return false;

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 18
 The message.php file (continued)
// Validate the mailbox
$atom = '[[:alnum:]_!#$%&\'*+\/=?^`{|}~-]+';
$dotatom = '(\.' . $atom . ')*';
$address = '(^' . $atom . $dotatom . '$)';
$char = '([^\\\\"])';
$esc = '(\\\\[\\\\"])';
$text = '(' . $char . '|' . $esc . ')+';
$quoted = '(^"' . $text . '"$)';
$localPart = '/' . $address . '|' . $quoted . '/';
$localMatch = preg_match($localPart, $mailbox);
if ($localMatch === false || $localMatch != 1) {
return false; }

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 19
 The message.php file (continued)
// Validate the host
$hostname =
'([[:alnum:]]([-[:alnum:]]{0,62}[[:alnum:]])?)';
$hostnames =
'(' . $hostname . '(\.' . $hostname . ')*)';
$top = '\.[[:alnum:]]{2,6}';
$domainPart = '/^' . $hostnames . $top . '$/';
$domainMatch = preg_match($domainPart, $host);
if ($domainMatch === false || $domainMatch != 1) {
return false; }

return true;
}
?>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 20
 How to use the send_email function
require_once 'message.php';

$from = 'John Doe <[email protected]>';

$to = 'Jane Doe <[email protected]>';

$subject = 'How to use PEAR Mail';

$body =
'<p>The Murach PHP and MySQL book has a chapter on how
to use the
<a href="http://pear.php.net/Mail/">
PEAR Mail package</a>
to send email.</p>';

$is_body_html = true;
try {
send_email($to, $from, $subject, $body, $is_body_html);
} catch (Exception $e) {
$error = $e->getMessage();
echo $error;
}

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 21
 How to configure PHP to use the cURL library
in Windows
1. Open the php.ini file in a text editor.
2. Find the line that contains the text “php_curl.dll”.
3. Remove the semicolon from the beginning of the line. It should
read as follows:
extension=php_curl.dll
4. Restart the Apache web server as described in the appendix.

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 22
 How to configure PHP to use the cURL library
in Mac OS X
1. Open the php.ini file in a text editor.
2. Find the line that contains the text “curl.so”.
3. If necessary, remove the semicolon from the beginning of the line.
It should read as follows:
extension=curl.so
4. Restart the Apache web server as described in the appendix.

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 23
 Common cURL functions
curl_init($url)
curl_setopt($curl, OPTION, $value)
curl_exec($curl)
curl_close($curl)

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 24
 How to use the cURL functions
// Initialize the cURL session
$curl = curl_init('http://www.example.com');

// Set the cURL options so the session returns data

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

// Transfer the data and store it

$page = curl_exec($curl);

// Close the session

curl_close($curl);

// Process the data

$page = nl2br(htmlspecialchars($page));
echo $page;

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 25
 The URL for the YouTube API documentation
http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/2.0/reference.html

The base URL for the YouTube Video Search API

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 26
 Four parameters that you can add to the base URL
alt Specifies an alternate data format. The default is
“atom” which returns XML data, but you can use
“json” to return data in the JavaScript Object Notation
(JSON) format.
q Specifies the search string.
orderby Specifies how to sort the results of the search. The
default is “relevance”; you can specify other values
such as “published”, “viewCount”, and “rating”.
safeSearch Filters videos by removing restricted content. The
default value is “moderate”; you can specify other
values such as “none” and “strict”.

A URL for a YouTube query

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?alt=json&q=shuttle

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 27
 How to use cURL to query YouTube
// Set up the URL for the query
$query = 'space shuttle';
$query = urlencode($query);
$base_url = 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos';
$params = 'alt=json&q=' . $query;
$url = $base_url . '?' . $params;

// Use cURL to get data in JSON format

$curl = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$json_data = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

// Get an array of videos from the JSON data

$data = json_decode($json_data, true);
$videos = $data['feed']['entry'];

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 28
 How to use cURL to query YouTube (continued)
// Access the data for each video
foreach ($videos as $video) {
$image_url =
$video['media$group']['media$thumbnail'][0]['url'];
$video_url = $video['link'][0]['href'];
$text = $video['title']['$t'];

// Code to output these values

}

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 29
 Search view

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 30
 Email view

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 31
 The controller (index.php)
<?php
require_once 'message.php';
session_start();

function search_youtube($query) {
// Set up the URL for the query
$query = urlencode($query);
$base_url = 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos';
$params = 'alt=json&q=' . $query;
$url = $base_url . '?' . $params;

// Use cURL to get data in JSON format

$curl = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$json_data = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

// Get array of videos from the JSON data and return it

$data = json_decode($json_data, true);
$videos = $data['feed']['entry'];
return $videos; }

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 32
 The controller (continued)
if (isset($_POST['action'])) {
$action = $_POST['action'];
} else {
$action = 'search';
}

if (isset($_POST['query'])) {
$query = $_POST['query'];
$_SESSION['query'] = $query;
} else if (isset($_SESSION['query'])) {
$query = $_SESSION['query'];
} else {
$query = '';
}

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 33
 The controller (continued)
switch ($action) {
case 'search':
if (!empty($query)) {
$videos = search_youtube($query);
}
include 'search_view.php';
break;
case 'display_email_view':
$url = $_POST['url'];
$text = $_POST['text'];
include 'email_view.php';
break;

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 34
 The controller (continued)
case 'send_mail':
// Get the data from the Mail View page
$from = $_POST['from'];
$to = $_POST['to'];
$subject = $_POST['subject'];

$text = $_POST['text'];
$url = $_POST['url'];
$message = $_POST['message'];

// Create the body

$body = $text . "\n\n" . $url . "\n\n" . $message;

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 35
 The controller (continued)
try {
// Send the email
send_email($to, $from, $subject, $body);

// Display the Search view for the current query

$videos = search_youtube($query);
include 'search_view.php';
} catch (Exception $e) {
$error = $e->getMessage();
include 'email_view.php';
}
break;

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 36
 The controller (continued)
default:
include 'search_view.php';
break;
}

?>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 37
 Search view (search_view.php)
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 ...>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>YouTube Search</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="main.css"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="page">
<div id="header"><h1>YouTube Search</h1></div>
<div id="main">

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 38
 Search view (continued)
<h2>Search</h2>
<form action="." method="post">
<input type="text" name="query"
value="<?php echo $query; ?>"/>
<input type="submit" value="Search"/>
</form>
<?php if (count($videos) != 0) : ?>
<h2>Results</h2>
<table>
<?php foreach ($videos as $video) :
$imgsrc =
$video['media$group']['media$thumbnail'][0]['url'];
$url = $video['link'][0]['href'];
$text = $video['title']['$t'];
?>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="<?php echo $url; ?>">
<img src="<?php echo $imgsrc; ?>">
</a>
</td>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 39
 Search view (continued)
<td>
<form action="." method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="action"
value="display_email_view"/>
<input type="hidden" name="url"
value="<?php echo $url; ?>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="text"
value="<?php echo $text; ?>"/>
<input type="submit"
value="Email this Link"/>
</form>
<a href="<?php echo $url; ?>">
<?php echo $text; ?>
</a>
</td>
</tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</table>
<?php endif; ?>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 40
 Search view (continued)
</div><!-- end main -->
</div><!-- end page -->
</body>
</html>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 41
 Email view (mail_view.php)
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 ...>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>YouTube Search</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
href="main.css"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="page">
<div id="header"><h1>YouTube Search</h1></div>
<div id="main">

<h2>Email the YouTube link</h2>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 42
 Email view (continued)
<?php if (isset($error)) : ?>
<p>Error Sending E-mail: <?php echo $error; ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>

<form action="." method="post" id="email_form">

<input type="hidden" name="action" value="send_mail"/>
<input type="hidden" name="url"
value="<?php echo $url; ?>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="text"
value="<?php echo $text; ?>"/>

<label>From:</label>
<input type="text" name="from"/>
Your email address<br />
<label>To:</label>
<input type="text" name="to"/>
Your friend's email address<br />
<label>Subject:</label>
<input type="text" name="subject"
value="YouTube Video Link"/><br />

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 43
 Email view (continued)
<label>Video:</label>
<?php echo $text; ?><br />

<label>Link:</label>
<?php echo $url; ?><br />

<label>Message:</label>
<textarea name="message">
I thought you might enjoy this video.
</textarea>
<br />

<label>&nbsp;</label>
<input type="submit" value="Send"/>
</form>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 44
 Email view (continued)
<form action="." method="post" id="cancel_form">
<label>&nbsp;</label>
<input type="submit" value="Cancel"/>
</form>

</div><!-- end main -->

</div><!-- end page -->
</body>
</html>

Murach's PHP and MySQL, C22 © 2010, Mike Murach & Associates, Inc. Slide 45