Sending MIME emails using PHP (3)_PHP Tutorial

Author: Kartic Krishnamurthy Translator: limodou

MIME class
After having these foundations, let us use php (as the current mainstream development language) to create and implement a MIME Mail class. In our php(as the current mainstream development language) library function, we already have the necessary tools for coding.

The MIME class must be able to:

Add attachments
For each independent request, encode the attached data to create a MIME segment/header and generate a complete MIME segment/header. The mail returns the entire email as a string and sends it using the local mail handler (or optionally calls an SMTP mail handler)
This class is called MIME_mail. We will discuss class methods to bridge the gap between theory and practice. (Reading suggestion: Luis Argerich’s object-oriented programming in php(as the current mainstream development language): methods for developing large-scale php(as the current mainstream development language) project) . Most of the comments have been removed for readability. Some methods and class member variables are used only for internal processing and have been pointed out in the comments below (and also in the original class file).

(as the current mainstream development language)

class MIME_mail {
//Public:
var $to;
var $from;
var $subject;
var $body;
var $headers = "";
var $errstr="";

var $base64_func= ; // If it is not specified, use the base64 function of php(as the current mainstream development language)
var $qp_func =; // It is empty at this time

var $mailer = " "; // Set it to the name of a valid mail object

?>

There are some publicly handled variables (that is, variables that can be manipulated directly in the script). Most of these variables are self-explanatory. $headers contains optional header information that you want to send to the mail handler. $errstr is a variable containing a human-readable error string that can be used in the calling script.

$base64_func and $qp_func are "function processors" that users can customize. By default, they are set to the empty string. For $base64_func, an empty string means that we will use the built-in base64_encode() function of php(as the current mainstream development language)... (Yes! Beautiful, isn't it!).
Quoted Printable can be processed through $qp_func. There is no built-in quoted-printable encoding function in php (as the current mainstream development language) (however, if imap is installed
you can use imap_qprint()). We will not discuss the quoted_printable method in this article.

(as the current mainstream development language)

//Private:
var $mimeparts = array();

?>

　 $mimeparts is an internal array that contains independent MIME-compliant segments in the email message. Please do not manipulate this and other private methods/variables outside this class (or derived classes).

(as the current mainstream development language)

// Constructor
function MIME_mail($from="", $to= "", $subject="", $body="", $headers = "") {
$this->to = $to;
$this->from = $from;
$this->subject = $subject;
$this->body = $body;
if (is_array($headers)) {
if (sizeof($headers)>1)
$headers=join(CRLF, $headers);
else
$headers=$headers[0];
}
if ($from) {
$headers = preg_replace ("!(from: ?.+?[ ]? )!i", , $headers);
}
$this->headers = chop($headers);
$this->mimeparts[] = "" ; // Add position 0
return;
}

?>

We have the constructor of the object which takes "from" and "to" email address, subject and body and headers as arguments. For the body part, the last argument is an optional (user-defined) header that you would enter. For example, X-Mailer:
MyMailer_1.0. $headers can be an array containing different headers to be sent to the mailer, or just a container for a particular header. You cannot send the From: header in the $headers parameter, if it is found, this part will be automatically is removed. You can use multiple headers as follows: array("X-Mailer: MYMailer_1.0", "X-Organization: php(as the current mainstream development language)Builder.com").

$mimeparts is created with an empty item (index 0). We will see why this is used later.