Using PHP to send the contents of a form to a specified e-mail address is so easy that you'll wonder why people don't do it every day. The PHP mail() function takes four arguments: the recipient, the subject, the message and any additional mail headers. In this short tutorial, you'll learn to set values for each of these variables, then send off the mail and return a confirmation page. We'll use a two-step process; one file for the form and one file for the PHP code to process the form, send the mail, and return a response. A note: this tutorial uses the PHP file extension ".php3" in its examples. If you use a different file extension to indicate PHP files, such as ".phtml" or ".php", please substitute accordingly.

First, start your favorite editor and create the HTML form. Personally, I adopted the "show/do" method when creating multi-step applications: if a file has the "show_" prefix, it's usually a form, and if it has the "do_" prefix, it's usually the PHP code. So, create a file called "show_form.html", containing two text fields and a textarea, like so:

Let's take apart this example form and see just what I've told you to do. First, the form action is "do_sendform.php3". This is the name of the file that you will create in just a little bit, which will contain the code to process the form and send the e-mail. Next, we have two input fields and a textarea. By default, the NAME of an input element becomes the name of the variable passed to "do_sendform.php3". So, when the form is sent, we will be passing three variables to "do_sendform.php3": $sender_name, $sender_email and $message. In this tutorial, you'll be sending the form to yourself with a specified subject, so both the recipient e-mail address and the subject will be coded into your PHP script.

Simple enough so far? Ok, let's tackle the PHP code. Go ahead and create the file "do_sendform.php3" in your text editor of choice. Start the script with this piece of code:

If you aren't in control of your server or you don't know if variable tracking is turned on, adding this line will ensure that at least for this script, variable tracking is enabled.

Next, build the e-mail by concatenating strings to form one long message string. "Concatenating" is a fancy geek word for "smashing together". You'll use the newline (\n) and tab (\t) characters to add spacing where appropriate. Continue your PHP code by adding this snippet:

In this line, you are beginning the message string by creating a variable called $msg and adding to it the text "Sender Name", followed by a tab, followed by the value of $sender_name and a newline character. When this script is executed, the variable $sender_name will be replaced by the text entered in the form.

Continue creating the message string by adding display text for the remaining text values to the variable $msg. Note the use of the concatenation operator (.=) when adding to the variable $msg:

The final line contains two newline characters, to add additional whitespace at the end of the string. At this point, all you've told PHP to do is to build a very long string, like so:

However, using the concatenation operator and separating your code with whitespace certainly makes it easier to edit later, as you won't have to search through one long line of text in order to make a change! Remember, whitespace is your friend...and will make you popular with any coding buddies who may have to edit your stuff.

At the beginning of this tutorial, I told you that the mail() function takes four arguments: the recipient, the subject, the message and any additional mail headers. In your code, now create variables to hold the values that you control - recipient, subject and mail headers:

Obviously, use your own e-mail address and any subject you want. Next, create a variable for additional mail headers. Some basic mail headers are "From" and "Reply-To". Create a variable called $mailheaders and add the following to it:

Use "<>" in the "From" header to indicate a blank e-mail address. Alternately, you could place the variable $sender_name in the "From" header as well as in the "Reply-To" header, but if the user has not completed that field, the form may not make it through your mail server with a blank "From" header. Best just to fill it with something generic, and use the "Reply-To" header for the sender's e-mail address.

You now have all of the pieces that the mail() function needs in order to, well, function. Place it in your code:

Finally, you should return something to the user's screen so they know the form has been sent. Otherwise, you know _someone_ is going to sit there and press the "Send This Form" button about a billion times, thereby flooding your mailbox and making you curse a lot. So, add a couple of lines of simple HTML code and end your PHP code:

Use the variable $sender_name in the content that is returned to the user's screen, as some semblance of "custom" content. Or, maybe it's just politeness. In any event, make a user feel loved and they'll come back to your site.

Your entire PHP script should look something like this:

Of course, feel free to substitute label names, spacing and any other items specific to your environment. As always, to learn more than just the basics, learn the PHP Manual and read the PHP Mailing List Archives!