[2jesters]

I'm adding a Newsletter/email subscription service to my web site. There will be list of newsletters from different authors. The visitor clicks on a checkbox next to the newsletter(s)/ezine(s) they are interested in and then at the bottom of the page they enter their name and email address, and of course click on the subscribe button.

I've got that part written in html and it works fine. Here's the basic code:

<td><form action="subscribe.php" method="post">
<p align = "left"><input type="checkbox" name = "email[]" value="somename@somewhere.com"> <font color="blue"><b>Newsletter Title</b></font> <br><font face="Verdana" size="2">Newsletter Description.</font></p><p align = "left"><input type="checkbox" name = "email[]" value="author@writer.com"> <font color="blue"><b>Newsletter Title</b></font> Newsletter Description.</font></p>
<center>
<p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Your Name: <br>
<input type="text" name="name" size="10"></font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Your Email:<br>
<input type="text" name="addy" size="10"></font></p>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" NAME="button" VALUE="Subscribe To Newsletter(s) Checked">
</center>
</FORM>

I wanted to use php for the form processing because of the array email[]. I've tried several things using the "foreach" loop, but can't make my "subscribe.php" file send the name and email address to the selected newsletter(s)' author(s). How do I do this in php? I'm not php literate, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
2jesters

[marklar]

You do not need the square brackets [] because it will automatically be made into an array. You only need to put them in your HTML if you want to access the array using Javascript (see this thread if you're interested), in php the [] is NOT part of the name, even if they are part of the name in HTML. This test script should work:

<?php
if(isset($_POST['addy'])){
echo sizeof($_POST['email']);
$subs = $_POST['email'];
foreach($subs as $key => $value){
echo $value;
};
echo "DONE";
};
?>

[2jesters]

Thanks Marklar,

I'll give that a try and let you know how it works.

Thanks again,
2jesters

[2jesters]

marklar,

I've got everything working except the mail() function. The first parameter has to be a string. What do I need to do?

Here's my code:

<?php
$from = "subscribe@resourcesite.org";
$subject = "You've received another subscriber from Jesters Resource Site's eNewstand";
$message =
"$_POST[name] \n
$_POST[addy] \n\n";
$headers = "From: $from";
if(isset($_POST['addy'])){
echo sizeof($_POST['email']);
$subs = $_POST['email'];
mail($subs,$subject,$message,$headers);
foreach($subs as $key => $value){
echo $value;
};
echo "DONE";
};
?>

Thx
2jesters

[bizzar528]

change

Code:

mail($subs,$subject,$message,$headers);

to

Code:

mail($from,$subject,$message,$headers);

Though the variables are misleading, I assume "subscribe@resourcesite.org" is the actual TO address.

reference -- http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php (mail(TO, SUBJECT, MESSAGE, HEADERS)

Also, the

Code:

$headers = "From: $from";

should probably be:

Code:

$headers = "From: $_POST[addy]";

[2jesters]

Thanks, but the TO address is from the array "email[]". We will be sending out the form info to newsletter authors selected by our visitors.

2jesters

[sandal]

Originally Posted by 2jesters

Thanks, but the TO address is from the array "email[]". We will be sending out the form info to newsletter authors selected by our visitors.

2jesters

so you are going to send email to many addresses?
have you tried to use foreach[] function?

Code:

<?
// said that $addr mean array contains many address
foreach($addr as $to){
            mail($to,$subj,$msg,$header);
}
?>

hope it works

[marklar]

What Sandal said is correct except that in your code it will look like this:

foreach($subs as $key => $value){
mail($value,$subject,$message,$headers);
};

That will be the simplest way of doing things. For future reference you can use mail() to send to multiple addresses if you seperate each address with a semi-colon ; like this
$to ="address@domain.com; email@address.com; another@somewhere.com"

In addition you can send someone's real name like this:
$to="Steve Smith <address@domain.com>; Boris Becker <email@address.com>; Madonna <another@somewhere.com>"

Just remember not to send to things like test@somewhere.com while you are testing, you will never know if it went & people at that sort of address must get thousands of messages.

:I

[moronovich]

What Sandal said is correct except that in your code it will look like this:

foreach($subs as $key => $value){
mail($value,$subject,$message,$headers);
};

no.. no... no.. sandal is right. php control 'foreach' with syntax "foreach($myArray as $myValue)" will return successive $myValue which each is the value of $myArray and not the array key. (please read the php doc or php source for this.. )

anyway, to use semicolon to send mail to some persons is +1 for me..

[marklar]

I know it's not perfectly efficient but I posted it like that for 2 reasons:
1) It's exactly the same code as he already has, just moving the lines around.
2) It teaches dealing with associative arrays in the future eg, the email address as $key and the real name as $value.

I'm afraid I broke a rule I have "Don't post unless you are sure". The syntax I gave for mail() is wrong, this is correct:

$to = "mary@example.com" . ", " ; // note the comma not semi-colon
$to .= "kelly@example.com";

$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($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

Sorry about that, but I had just woken up.
:I