Sending HTML E-Mails with file attachments with one easy function!

Quite a few years ago I was having difficulty with sending HTML emails, on some clients they worked fine but for others they would come through all garbled. so I decided to research a correct approach, which I implemented into a function.

A little while later I wanted to also send file attachments in the emails, so again I did some research (and some trial and error) and finally got it working! I expanded my mail function with the new functionality and have been using it in projects ever since.

Today I have decided to share this function so that others can weep with joy at how simple it will now be to send emails, html emails and attachments!

<?php
/*
m_mail function created by:
 Dean Williams
 http://dean.resplace.net
m_mail function usage:
----------------------
 $to = to email address, can add multiple using ,
 $from = from email address
 $subject = subject of the email (plain text)
 $html = email content, preferably html.
 $text = plain text version of the email, send false and it will strip html from the $html version.
 $file_up = the files to attach to the message, you can either send links or file data
 eg.
 array(
 "file1" => array(
 "name" => "filename.txt",
 "link" => "/path/to/file.txt"
 ),
 "file2" => array(
 "name" => "filename2.txt",
 "data" => "[raw filedata here]"
 )
 );
*/
function m_mail($to, $from, $subject, $html, $text = '', $file_up = array()) {
 $eol = PHP_EOL;
 if(!$text) {
 $text = strip_tags(preg_replace('/<br[^>]*>/im', $eol, $html));
 }
 if (!$html) {
 $html = $text;
 }
 
 $random_hash = md5(time());
 $random_hash_2 = md5(time() + 1);
 
 $body = '--PHPmixed'.$random_hash_2 . $eol .
 'Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary= PHPalt' . $random_hash . $eol .
 $eol . '--PHPalt' . $random_hash . $eol .
 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"' . $eol .
 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit' . $eol . $eol .
 $text .
 $eol . '--PHPalt' . $random_hash . $eol .
 'Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"' . $eol .
 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit' . $eol . $eol .
 $html . $eol;
 
 if(is_array($file_up) && count($file_up)) {
 $body .= '--PHPalt' . $random_hash . '--' . $eol;
 
 foreach($file_up as $file) {
 if (isset($file['link'])) {
 $file_n = file_get_contents($file['link']);
 } else {
 $file_n = $file['data'];
 }
  $attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($file_n), 76, $eol);
  
  $body .= '--PHPmixed' . $random_hash_2;
  $body .= $eol . 'Content-Type: {"application/octet-stream"}; name="' . urlencode($file['name']) . '"' . $eol;
  $body .= 'Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . urlencode($file['name']) . '"' . $eol;
  $body .= 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64' . $eol . $eol . $attachment . $eol . $eol;
 }
 }
 
 $headers = 'From: ' . $from . $eol .
 'Reply-To: ' . $from . $eol .
 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . $eol .
 'Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary= PHPmixed' . $random_hash_2 . $eol .
 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit' . $eol .
 'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion() . $eol .
 'This is a MIME encoded message.';
 
 if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers)) {
 return true;
 } else {
 return false;
 }
}
?>

Author: Dean WilliamsI'm a Web Developer, Graphics Designer and Gamer, this is my personal site which provides PHP programming advice, hints and tips

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