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PHP

Aaron HARPT
Aaron HARPT
19,845 Points
Posted by Aaron HARPT
Aaron HARPT
19,845 Points

Issue with PHPmailer

I am having an issue with PHPmailer while following the Build A Basic PHP Website course. The specific error I am asking about is that when I send an email, the $email variable and in my case $message (instead of $details) have blank values. Also, the email is coming up as from the name "Root User" and the email "root@localhost.local". It should say that it is from the name and email of the person who sent the email. Here is my code:

<?php
 if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
     $name = trim(filter_input(INPUT_POST, "name", FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING));
     $email = trim(filter_input(INPUT_POST, "email", FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL));
     $message = trim(filter_input(INPUT_POST, "message", FILTER_SANITIZE_SPECIAL_CHARS));

   if ($name == "" || $email = "" || $message = "") {
     echo "Please fill in all the required fields: Name, Email, and Message";
     exit;
   }

   if ($_POST["address"] != "") {
     echo "Bad form input";
     exit;
   }


// Sending email using PHPMailer
    // requiring phpmailer file
     require("inc/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php");

    // new PHPMailer object
      $mail = new PHPMailer;

      // Checking if email is valid
      // if (!$mail->validateAddress($email, auto)) {
      //   echo "Invalid Email Address";
      //   exit;
      // }


   $email_body = "";
   $email_body .= "Name " . $name . "\n";
   $email_body .= "Email " . $email . "\n";
   $email_body .= "Message " . $message . "\n";

  //  var_dump($email_body);

  //  $email_body = "";
  //  $email_body .= "Name " . $name . "\n";
  //  // $email
  //  $email_body .= "Email " . "harpt2@icloud.com" . "\n";
  //  // $message
  //  $email_body .= "Message " . "comment" . "\n";

  // $name
   $mail->setFrom($email, $name);
   $mail->addAddress('aaron.harpt@gmail.com', 'Aaron Harpt');     // Add a recipient
   $mail->isHTML(false);                                  // Set email format to HTML

   $mail->Subject = 'Comment on Website from ' . $name;
   // $email_body
   $mail->Body    = $email_body;
  //  $mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';

   if(!$mail->send()) {
       echo 'Message could not be sent.';
       echo 'Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
       exit;
   }

   header("location:contact.php?status=thanks");

 }

Thanks, Aaron

1 Answer

Joedy Felts
Joedy Felts
3,981 Points

First, there is an issue with the if statement towards the top where you are checking if the $name, $email, $message variables are empty. With the $name variable, you are correctly using the double-equal operator (==) to check the value. But for the $email and $message variables you are using the single equal sign (=) which is ASSIGNING the empty string value of "".

if ($name == "" || $email = "" || $message = "") {
     echo "Please fill in all the required fields: Name, Email, and Message";
     exit;
   }