The mail() function allows you to send emails, as long as the server has a fully-functional email system already set up.
This function accepts five different parameters, only four of which we will discuss here, and only three of which are required.
| Parameter | Importance | Description |
|---|---|---|
| to | Required | Recipient(s) of Email |
| subject | Required | Subject of Email |
| message | Required | Message Body of Email |
| headers | Optional | From, Reply-To, CC, BCC, Date, Etc. |
Listed in order of appearance, the parameters are: mail(to,subject,message,headers)
One of the most simple examples of the mail() function is:
<?php
mail("an-email@a-domain.com","Brilliant Subject","Boring message body.");
?>
The addition of headers allows you to specify who the email is from and who should be copied and/or blind copied on an email
<?php
$to = "an-email@a-domain.com";
$subject = "Why do dogs bury bones in the ground?";
$message = "Because they can't bury them in trees!";
$headers = 'From: <an-email@a-domain.com>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Reply-To: an-email@a-domain.com' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Cc: an-email@a-domain.com' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Bcc: an-email@a-domain.com' . "\r\n";
mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);
?>
HTML emails can be sent by specifying the appropriate content-type in the header.
<?php
$to = "an-email@a-domain.com";
$subject = "This is an HTML email!";
$message = "
<html>
<body>
<h2>Cool, right?</h2>
</body>
</html>
";
$headers = 'From: <an-email@a-domain.com>' . "\r\n";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type:text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" . "\r\n";
mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);
?>