Code Answer: Problems with sending a multipart/alternative email with PHP

Here's the script that's builds/sends the email:

$boundary = md5(date('U'));

$to = $email;
$subject = "My Subject";

$headers = "From: myaddress@mydomain.com" . "\r\n".
     "X-Mailer: PHP/".phpversion() ."\r\n".
     "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n".
     "Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=--$boundary". "\r\n".
     "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit". "\r\n";

$text = "You really ought remember the birthdays";     
$html = '<html>
 <head>
   <title>Birthday Reminders for August</title>
 </head>
 <body>
   <p>Here are the birthdays upcoming in August!</p>
   <table>
     <tr>
       <th>Person</th><th>Day</th><th>Month</th><th>Year</th>
     </tr>
     <tr>
       <td>Joe</td><td>3rd</td><td>August</td><td>1970</td>
     </tr>
     <tr>
       <td>Sally</td><td>17th</td><td>August</td><td>1973</td>
     </tr>
   </table>
 </body>
 </html>
 ';

$message = "Multipart Message coming up" . "\r\n\r\n".
    "--".$boundary.
    "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"" .
    "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".
    $text. 
    "--".$boundary. 
    "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"". 
    "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit". 
    $html.
    "--".$boundary."--";



mail("toAddress@example.com", $subject, $message, $headers);

It sends the message just fine, and my recipient receives it, but they get the whole thing in text/plain instead of in multipart/alternative. Viewing the source of the received message gives this (lots of cruft removed):

--- snip ---
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:37:36 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <200903252337.n2PNbaw2019541@www.xxxxxxx.com>
To: trevor@saturdayplace.com
Subject: My Subject
From: me@mydomain.com
X-Mailer: PHP/4.3.9
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
boundary="--66131caf569f63b24f43d529d8973560"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Mar 2009 23:38:30.0531 (UTC) FILETIME=[CDC4E530:01C9ADA2]
X-TM-AS-Product-Ver: SMEX-8.0.0.1181-5.600.1016-16540.005
X-TM-AS-Result: No--4.921300-8.000000-31
X-TM-AS-User-Approved-Sender: No
X-TM-AS-User-Blocked-Sender: No


Multipart Message coming up

--66131caf569f63b24f43d529d8973560
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

You really ought remember the birthdays

--66131caf569f63b24f43d529d8973560
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<html>
 <head>
   <title>Birthday Reminders for August</title>
 </head>
 <body>
   <p>Here are the birthdays upcoming in August!</p>
   <table>
     <tr>
       <th>Person</th><th>Day</th><th>Month</th><th>Year</th>
     </tr>
     <tr>
       <td>Joe</td><td>3rd</td><td>August</td><td>1970</td>
     </tr>
     <tr>
       <td>Sally</td><td>17th</td><td>August</td><td>1973</td>
     </tr>
   </table>
 </body>
 </html>


--66131caf569f63b24f43d529d8973560--

It looks like the content-type header is getting changed along the way from multipart/alternative to text/plain. I'm no sysadmin, so if this is a sendmail issue I'm in way over my head. Any suggestions?

From stackoverflow

The line

"Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=--$boundary". "\r\n".

should be

"Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=$boundary". "\r\n".

You don't include the dashes in the header.

saturdayplace : Gaaaaaa! - Thank RoBorg. That was indeed it.

Just a thought, but it might be a lot easier to simply worth with something like phpmailer or Zend_Mail.
use "\n" instead of "\r\n" looks like it qmail has problems with "\r"

Code Answer

Friday, April 15, 2011

Problems with sending a multipart/alternative email with PHP

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive