A MIME Mailer Class - Adding an Attachment

(Page 3 of 4 )

  function add_attachment($file_path)
  {
   if($file_path != "")
   {
    $this->files[] = $this->set_file_section($file_path);
   }
  }

          function set_file_section($file_path)
   {
   if($str = file_get_contents($file_path))
   {
    $str = file_get_contents($file_path);
    $bname = basename($file_path);
         $str = chunk_split(base64_encode($str));
    $section .= "--MIME_BOUNDRY\n";
    $section .= "Content-Type: ".$this->determine_mime($file_path)."; name=\"$bname\"\n";
    $section .= "Content-disposition: attachment\n";
    $section .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64";
    $section .= "\n\n";
    $section .= "$str";
    $section .= "\n\n";
    return $section;
   }
   else
   {
    $problem = "";
    if(!file_exists($file_path))
    {
     $problem = "File could not be found";
    }
    echo("<strong>unable to load specified file $file_path in set_file_section method</strong> <br>$problem");
    exit();
   }
   }

The "add_attachment()" method is pretty simple. It accepts the string path to a file to attach as an argument. It calls the "set_file_section()" method which loads the file, encodes it and places it in the proper mime content. In order to insert the proper mime type for the file into the string, we need to send the file name to a function that determines the mime type based on the file extension. There are a lot of these functions available on various sites and more complex classes that use the mime types file that is used by Apache.

For this class I have written a basic mime type function that supports the formats I most commonly encounter in my work. If you have additional ones that you wish to support, adding mime types to this function is as simple as adding to the switch construct.

   function determine_mime($name)
   {
    $str = basename($name);
   $name_arr = explode(".",$str);
   $len = count($name_arr) - 1;
   $name_arr[$len] = strtolower($name_arr[$len]);
   switch($name_arr[$len])
   {
    case "jpg":
     $type = "image/jpeg";
     break;
    case "jpeg":
     $type = "image/jpeg";
     break;
    case "gif":
     $type = "image/gif";
     break;
    case "txt":
     $type = "text/plain";
     break;
    case "pdf":
     $type = "application/pdf";
     break;
    case "csv";
     $type = "text/csv";
     break;
    case "html":
     $type = "text/html";
     break;
    case "htm":
     $type = "text/html";
     break;
    case "xml":
     $type = "text/xml";
     break;
   }
   return $type;
   }

Next: Sending it on its way >>
 

More PHP Articles
More By Chris Root

Comments On: A MIME Mailer Class

· Firstly, thanks for this quick tutorial.I can't see the "body" part of the...    · Try putting the body of the message at the beginning of the body string. This may...    · I think i've solved the problem. In function assamble(), I put a "." before "=" in ...    · Hello,This is a very good article you have done!A question about the mail...    · As I understand it, The string does have to be unique, It cannot match anything that...    · I am still using PHP 4.2.1. Will this class still work, or is only for PHP 5?    · I developed it in PHP 4.x. It should work just fine in either.    · I've got this working the first time up, but the email I get is encoded and no...    · I am using MS Outlook...does that matter. my attachments are encoded so it all...    · Thank you so much for this tutorial, it really helped me alot...i just need a...   >>> Post your comment now!