Mail() problem

Hi,

I can't get the following code snippet to stop throwing errors except to
modify it exactly as shown here by adding the single quote to the end of
the first line and commenting out all but the first line:

-----------------
<?php <========= This is line 108 mentioned in the error msg
$mailuser="nodoby@spamcop.net";
$header="Return-Path: ".$mailuser." \r\n";
$header .="From: Bad Link<".$mailuser.">\r\n";
$header .="Content-Type: text/html;";

$mail_body = '
<br>User: ' . $email .' submitted a form re: BAD LINK '<===this line
will work
//<br>Zip: ' . $_POST['zipcode2'] . '<br>
//<br>City: '. $_POST['city'] . '<br>
//<br>Link: '. $_POST['page'] . '<br>
//<br/>Link Wording: ' . $_POST['wording'] . '<br/>
//<br/>Details: ' $_POST[;details'] ' . <br/>
//<br/>Response? ' $_POST['respond'] . '<br/'
;
//mail($mailuser, 'Form Sent', $header, $mail_body );
?>
-----------------
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in
C:\xampp\htdocs\ContactUs\badLinkCheck.php on line 108
-----------------

By inserting/deleting blank lines, I've determined the error is in the
'$mail_body =' section, not the $headers area. But that's as close as I
can get it. I thought the $_POST was wrong, but it's identical to the
format used in another, fully functional form. In fact, the first 3
lines of the mail body are identical to the working form. Not that that
proves the other form is "right"!<G>

Moving the single quote indicated above to the second line, say, and
uncommenting the second line, in addition to the first line (or
without), throws an error. As it does with any of the $_POST lines.
But darned if I can see anything wrong with it. I'ver read/reread the
manual & a few other articles til I'm blue in the face without success.
The $_POST names are all available; just before the mail() section
because I echo them all to the screen to be certain they existed and
they display as expected.

Any comments or advice?

TIA,

Twayne

re: Mail() problem

Twayne wrote:Looks like you have mismatched single quotes earlier in the file.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

re: Mail() problem

Twayne wrote:[ Sigh ] That's entirely possible I suppose; I'll go look again; sounds
plausible.

Thanks,

Twayne

re: Mail() problem

Twayne wrote:Thanks Jerry, that was the push I needed. Knowing there wasn't anything
obviously wrong about the snip I posted helped an awful lot.

For any newbies reading, yes, I know there is also a "." missing before
the variable in each of the two last lines, just in case anyone noticed;
that wasn't the issue.

Regards,

Twayne

re: Mail() problem

//<br/>Details: ' $_POST[;details'] ' . <br/>


shouldnt that be


//<br/>Details: ' $_POST['details'] ' . <br/>


also i think that this may work, im not 100% on it but give it a go
and post back



$mail_body = "
<br>User: ' . $email .' submitted a form re: BAD LINK '
<br>Zip: ' . $_POST['zipcode2'] . '<br>
<br>City: '. $_POST['city'] . '<br>
<br>Link: '. $_POST['page'] . '<br>
<br>Link Wording: ' . $_POST['wording'] . '<br>
<br>Details: ' $_POST[;details'] . '<br>
<br>Response? ' $_POST['respond'] . '<br" ;

mail($mailuser, 'Form Sent', $header, $mail_body );
?>

re: Mail() problem

//<br/>Details: ' $_POST[;details'] ' . <br/>Yup; I'd been doing so much butchering and occasionally having to retype
things that crept in on me and I didn't catch it when I did the
copy/paste. I also lost a "." (concat) in the last two lines, just
before the vars. Stupid mistakes I know, but at least those are easier
to find<g>.
No, those are no help, I'm afraid. I tried each one just for grins so
I'd be sure I was right, but each resulted in an error msg, usually the
same one.
I did find the problem; I'd mangled a variable back in earlier code.
'Respond' should have been 'contact'. That and the missing "." at the
same time resulted in confusion for me. I had a feeling it was going to
turn out that way, but what I posted for was basically to see if the
format of the mail() was basically correct.
Here's how I read the mail() layout: if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will
correct me. I'm only a neophyte at PHP so far.

The double quotes don't work because where you placed them because they
created mismatches quotes. The first double quote and the first single
quote below are the first "set" of quotes. The lines are just laid out
a little strangely IMO. Then just count the quotes in pairs to the end
and you see why the last one should be a single quote too.
What I find interesting about the mail() layout below, which seems to
be consistant between authors, is the format is really just one long
line.
If you re-arrange it as below, the quote paring is a little more
obvious:

$mail_body = "<br>User: ' .
$email .' submitted a form re: BAD LINK <br>Zip: ' .
$_POST['zipcode2'] .
'<br <br>City: '.
$_POST['city'] .
'<br<br>Link: '.
$_POST['page'] .
'<br <br>Link Wording: ' .
$_POST['wording'] .
'<br<br>Details: '
$_POST[;details'] .
'<br<br>Response? '
$_POST['respond'] . '<br" ;

mail($mailuser, 'Form Sent', $header, $mail_body );

So now one can see why the quotes are mismatched. I thought for awhile
the first/last quotes were a container too somehow, but it turns out
they aren't; it's just the way it works out for the way it's written;
it's really just one long line of code. I have to wonder why {} aren't
used to clarify things, but I haven't have the chance to try it. Maybe
mail() doesn't like a lot of things I'm not aware of yet.
Like I said, if all that's a wrong assessment, I'm sure someone will
pick up on it and let us know<g>.
I'm finally catching on to how to troubleshoot and use PHP's
sometimes pretty cryptic error messages. It seems one needs more of an
attitude than a literal mind to interpret the errors.

Regards,

Twayne


==== original snip posted ====
$mail_body = " <================================ single quote
<br>User: ' . $email .' submitted a form re: BAD LINK '<======= remove
quote
<br>Zip: ' . $_POST['zipcode2'] . '<br>
<br>City: '. $_POST['city'] . '<br>
<br>Link: '. $_POST['page'] . '<br>
<br>Link Wording: ' . $_POST['wording'] . '<br>
<br>Details: ' $_POST[;details'] . '<br<================= add ".",
fix ";" to single quote
<br>Response? ' $_POST['respond'] . '<br" ;<============= single
quote, add "."

mail($mailuser, 'Form Sent', $header, $mail_body );

re: Mail() problem

Message-ID: <wZ2dk.319$Z11.140@trndny05from Twayne contained the
following:
Yuk - html only, in an email. That's just wrong.

This works too:-

$mail_body = "
User:\t\t $email submitted a form re: BAD LINK
Zip:\t\t ".$_POST['zipcode2']."
City:\t\t ".$_POST['city']."
Link:\t\t ".$_POST['page']."
Link Wording:\t ".$_POST['wording']."
Details:\t ".$_POST['details']."
Response?\t ".$_POST['respond']."
" ;

or even

$mail_body = "
User:\t\t $email submitted a form re: BAD LINK
Zip:\t\t $_POST[zipcode2]
City:\t\t $_POST[city]
Link:\t\t $_POST[page]
Link Wording:\t$_POST[wording]
Details:\t $_POST[details]
Response?\t $_POST[respond]
" ;


BTW if you use an editor like Notepad++ a lot of these mis-matches will
become apparent thanks to the syntax highlighting.
--
Geoff Berrow 0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011

re: Mail() problem

Message-ID: <wZ2dk.319$Z11.140@trndny05from Twayne contained the¿HUH? lol, You'll have to forgive this neophyte, but that went right
over my nead!
Are you suggesting that it should consist of session variables or
something similar or what? This isn't production code by any means, but
eventually should end up as such, so I'm reasonably interested in the
strongly phrased "That's just wrong" and what IYO would be "right"?
Everything I have right now is pretty embryonic, but I'm slowly getting
to the point where I can be dangerous<g>.
I can see I've been overthinking things again too from your examples
here, esp the last one. NOW we're getting somewhere with this stuff!
And I'd not thought of the "\t" tab character either.
Hmm, I've been using NoteTabPro & tsWebEditor with minimal success, but
Notepad++ looks pretty interesting, judging by what I see at MajorGeeks.
I'm going to give it a look-see anyway. Thanks for the tip.

Regards,

Twayne
--
Children are the future;
unless we stop them now.
- Homer Simpson
And History repeats itself;
Again.
- ME

re: Mail() problem

Message-ID: <wZ2dk.319$Z11.140@trndny05from Twayne contained the....Hi Geoff,

Just posting back to say thanks again for mentioning NotePad Plus. It's
syntax highlighting is much better than NoteTabPro and it's easier to do
a lot of things with. It's definitely worth anyone's time to look at if
they aren't ready to spend money on an IDE yet, which I am not.
Unfortunately it's one of those things where you wish you could get
authors all into the same room though and combine their apps into
one<G>. I don't want to give up NoteTab's clip libs and a few other
things so I guess for the time being I'll be writing code in one and
troubleshooting in the other. Maybe I'll change my mind with experience
but I've built/am building up a pretty good clip lib in addition to the
ones already provided in NoteTabPro, so ... when I can figure out how to
do that in ++ or the ++ stuff in NoteTab, it'll be the major step in
letting one of them go.
NotePad++ IS a great looking, all around app, regardless of what I
said.

The only downside of ++ I really note so far is I hate online Help and
in particular despise clicking for Help and getting a political hype
about boycotting Beijeng & whatever the next one will be. Maybe the
Help is downloadable separately and I just haven't found it yet; dunno.
That's rude & crude IMO, & distracting to a train of thought.

Question though: How would it help with spotting quote relationships? I
can't see a way to make it react to them. Checked in HTML too; didn't
see anything. Yes, I have it set for PHP.

Thanks though; good find! I'm sure I'll recommend it once I get more
into it.

Twayne

re: Mail() problem

Message-ID: <LF8dk.1095$4a3.468@trnddc04from Twayne contained the
following:
No, I'm suggesting you shouldn't use html markup in an email like this.
And you shouldn't use html without a plain text alternative anyway.

--
Geoff Berrow 0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011

re: Mail() problem

Message-ID: <LF8dk.1095$4a3.468@trnddc04from Twayne contained theOH. Your response still feels very vague to me though, perhaps because
of my inexperience. I also may be taking your meaning too literal,
again as a result of my inexperience. I do wish to understand this
further:
IF I understand properly, maybe this will help: That snip is
actually part of a <?php ... ?tag sets with what I am pretty sure are
appropriate PHP entrances/exits within the code. I removed everything I
could that would still cause the same message to display and that's what
I posted.

Perhaps your "like this" is more meaningful than I place on the phrase
and you're really talking about a methodology?

Or, you're saying I'm allowing 8-bit characters? To me, whether it's 8
bit or 7 bit plain text, it's still HTML (hyper-text markup language),
so ... ?? Rest assured, I have no intention of allowing executable code
in the message for the final code. Right now it's a basic learning
endeavor I'm going through. I'm just taking it a piece at a time and
being sure I understand each piece before I move on to the next one.

I'm not asking you to write or rewrite any code for me; I simply want to
understand precisely what it is you are referring to for my own
edification. If you're referring to a different methodolgy, I'm wide
open to suggestions. And/or links, or search terms, whatever. I'm not
afraid to research.

Thanks,

Twayne

re: Mail() problem

Greetings, Twayne.
In reply to Your message dated Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 3:50:54,
Get an editor with decent code highlighting engine, seriously.
Then your error will light up your code until you fix it.


--
Sincerely Yours, AnrDaemon <anrdaemon@freemail.ru>

re: Mail() problem

Message-ID: <Krrdk.1246$bn3.499@trnddc07from Twayne contained the
following:
It's fine. I just showed you some alternative ways of doing it. Using
html mark up in an email is an entirely different issue. Not all mail
clients can display html and even if you do send an email marked up in
html you should always send a plain text alternative. Since this just
seemed to be a simple error report, I could not see the need for html
markup and so I removed itSometimes things can seem more complicated than they really are.



--
Geoff Berrow 0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011