I've been trying to muscle my way to figure out how to fix my form to send email via a PHP form and have received the following errors:


Notice: Undefined variable: smtp in C:\..\contact.php on line 65

Fatal error: Call to a member function send() on a non-object in C:\..\contact.php on line 65

Line 65: $mail = $smtp->send($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders);

I'm not sure how to fix it, but I've supplied my code below:
<?php
// set flag to indicate whether mail has been sent
$mailSent = false;
if (array_key_exists('eList', $_POST)) {
// mail processing script
// remove escape characters from POST array
if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
function stripslashes_deep($value) {
$value = is_array($value) ? array_map('stripslashes_deep', $value) : stripslashes($value);
return $value;
}
$_POST = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_POST);
}

$email = $_POST['email'];

// check for valid email address
$pattern = '/^[^@]+@[^\s\r\n\'";,@%]+$/';
if (!preg_match($pattern, trim($email))) {
$error['email'] = 'Please enter a valid email address';
}

// validate the input, beginning with name
$name = trim($_POST['name']);
if (empty($name)) {
$error['name'] = 'Please enter your First Name';
}
$lname = trim($_POST['lname']);
if (empty($lname)) {
$error['lname'] = 'Please enter your Last Name';
}
$department = $_POST['department'];
if ($_POST['department'] == '') {
$error['department'] = 'Please select a Department';
}

// check the content of the text area
$messageBody = trim($_POST['message']);
if (empty($messageBody)) {
$error['message'] = 'Please enter your message';
}


// initialize variables
if (!empty($_POST['url'])) {
$to = 'email@email.com';//
$subject = 'Suspected as SPAM';
$host = 'smtpout.secureserver.net';
$username = 'username;
$password = 'password';
} else {
$to = 'email@email.com';//
$subject = 'Subject';
$host = 'smtpout.secureserver.net';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';
}

$SpamErrorMessage = "No URLs permitted";
if (preg_match("/http/i", "$name")) {echo "$SpamErrorMessage"; exit();}
if (preg_match("/http/i", "$lname")) {echo "$SpamErrorMessage"; exit();}
if (preg_match("/http/i", "$email")) {echo "$SpamErrorMessage"; exit();}
if (preg_match("/http/i", "$messageBody")) {echo "$SpamErrorMessage"; exit();} // check for spam

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders);

//build the message
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array('host' => $host,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$message = "To: $department\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "From: $name $lname\r\n";
$message .= "$email\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "Question/Comment: $messageBody";

//build the additional headers
$additionalHeaders = "From: Contact <email@email.com>\r\n";
$additionalHeaders .= "Reply-To: $email";



//send the email if there are not errors
if (!isset($error)) {
$mailSent = mail($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders);
// check that the mail was sent successfully
if (!$mailSent) {
$error['notSent'] = 'Sorry, there was a problem sending your mail. Please try later.;
}
}
}
?>
Thank you to anyone who can help!

Try moving the //build the message section above the $mail. Currently $mail is referencing a variable that doesn't yet exist.

So instead of this:

PHP Code:

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders);

//build the message
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array('host' => $host,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$message = "To: $department\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "From: $name $lname\r\n";
$message .= "$email\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "Question/Comment: $messageBody"; 


Try this:

PHP Code:

//build the message
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array('host' => $host,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$message = "To: $department\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "From: $name $lname\r\n";
$message .= "$email\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "Question/Comment: $messageBody";

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders); 


Thanks PhysicsGuy, but it seems to have generated a new error:
Fatal error: Class 'Mail' not found in C:\..\contact.php on line 68

Line 68 is that very same line from the previous error message.

Where is the Mail class? What the script is doing is trying to use a (static) method named 'factory' in class named 'Mail'. Is there a Mail class anywhere? Maybe you forgot to require/include it.

Also, looking back I think I spotted an error in what I previously posted:

The replacement should be from this:

PHP Code:

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders);

//build the message
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array('host' => $host,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$message = "To: $department\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "From: $name $lname\r\n";
$message .= "$email\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "Question/Comment: $messageBody";

//build the additional headers
$additionalHeaders = "From: Contact <email@email.com>\r\n";
$additionalHeaders .= "Reply-To: $email"; 


To this:

PHP Code:

//build the message
$smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
array('host' => $host,
'auth' => true,
'username' => $username,
'password' => $password));
$message = "To: $department\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "From: $name $lname\r\n";
$message .= "$email\r\n\r\n";
$message .= "Question/Comment: $messageBody";

//build the additional headers
$additionalHeaders = "From: Contact <email@email.com>\r\n";
$additionalHeaders .= "Reply-To: $email";

$mail = $smtp->send($to, $subject, $message, $additionalHeaders); 


To be truthful, I found this recommendation online: How to Send Email from a PHP Script Using SMTP Authentication and have been trying to adapt it to my own code.

Ah, that could be your problem. Could you please post the link to the tutorial? The writer might be using another file, which I'm assuming would be where the Mail class is.

I would except the forum won't allow me. Do a Google Search on the term How to Send Email from a PHP Script Using SMTP Authentication. It is on About.com.

Thank you Physicsguy for your time. I really do appreciate some education in this.

Ah, no problem

I found the article, and the first thing it says it so make sure PEAR Mail is installed. My guess is that's where the Mail class comes from

I also see the code has

PHP Code:

require_once "Mail.php"; 


in it. There's no way of me knowing where your files are, but you probably need to have some sort of Mail.php. Perhaps the PEAR Mail package gives you that.

Why do you need SMTP Authentication? The mail() function (which is built right into PHP) works just fine for me, and it even supports HTML. Why go to this trouble?

Believe me, I know the form works fine! It works fine on three other servers as well when I tested it. What happened was there was a server update on a client's server and when it was updated, the form quit working. It was suggested by their server maintainer that I create an SMTP Authentication login to see if that will work---just something else to figure out, I guess.

I looked on their server and don't see anything relating to a PEAR Mail script, so I'm not sure what else to do to get this working correctly. I'm open to suggestions!

If you are allowed to add PHP PECL extensions, then you can just install this plugin to the server. If you can't... Well there's no way to get it working on that server

Sorry, but I'm glad to have (somewhat) helped!

I removed all of the excess code for PEARL and added this to the form and it worked like a peach!

<?php
ini_set("sendmail_from", "info@domain.com");
?>

Thanks for your time and trying!

Originally Posted by toad78

I removed all of the excess code for PEARL and added this to the form and it worked like a peach!

<?php
ini_set("sendmail_from", "info@domain.com");
?>

Thanks for your time and trying!

No, thank YOU for posting a solution! Now people who google for this will know what you did

Originally Posted by toad78

I removed all of the excess code for PEARL and added this to the form and it worked like a peach!

<?php
ini_set("sendmail_from", "info@domain.com");
?>

Thanks for your time and trying!

So your original problem was most likely the lack of a sender address using the mail() function. In the fourth parameter of the mail() function you can specify additional headers, amongst them the "From" field. Your server wouldn't allow you to send mails because there was no sender address given.

What you did, was to add a default address to PHP's configuration file, to be used when no address is specified. Just adding it in the fourth parameter would have worked just as fine, as in:

PHP Code:

// ...
// set your to, subject and message fields as before
// ...

$headers = 'From: "Your name" <your_email@domain.com>';

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); 


Of course, either way works, so no reason for you to change it any more. Just thought I'd add some clarification