Quick Reference
The PHP mail() function allows you to send emails directly from a script.
<?php
// the message
$msg = 'First line of text\nSecond line of text';
// use wordwrap() if lines are longer than 70 characters
$msg = wordwrap($msg, 70);
// send email
mail('johnny@example.com', 'My subject', $msg);
?>
Syntax
mail(to,subject,message,headers,parameters)
Parameters
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
to | Specifies the receiver(s) of the email (required) |
subject | Specifies the subject of the email (required) |
message | Defines the message to be sent; each line should be separated with a LF (\n); lines should not exceed 70 characters (required) |
headers | Specifies additional headers, like From, Cc, and Bcc; the additional headers should be separated with a CRLF (\r\n); all emails must contain a From header which can be set with this parameter or in the php.ini file |
parameters | Specifies an additional parameter to the sendmail program (the one defined in the sendmail_path configuration setting) |
PHP Notes:
- When using PHP, single or double quotation marks are acceptable and work identically to one another; choose whichever you prefer, and stay consistent
- Arrays count starting from zero NOT one; so item 1 is position [0], item 2 is position [1], and item 3 is position [2] … and so on
We’d like to acknowledge that we learned a great deal of our coding from W3Schools and TutorialsPoint, borrowing heavily from their teaching process and excellent code examples. We highly recommend both sites to deepen your experience, and further your coding journey. We’re just hitting the basics here at 1SMARTchicken.