Getting PHP to read an e-mail

Ok, for the reference, I'm using PHP 4.3, mySQL and sendmail.

I have a news content site, and I have an e-mail address dedicated for PHP
content automation.

What I'm aiming to do here is have PHP grab the e-mail, parse it, and update
the database.

Parsing and updating the database is no prob. I'm a little clueless on how
to get PHP to grab e-mails.

I don't need to be hand-held through it, but if anyone knows reference
locations (articles, PHP documentation entries, theory, etc), it would be a
big help.




Thanks in Advance,

Robert

Rob wrote:

> Ok, for the reference, I'm using PHP 4.3, mySQL and sendmail.
>
> I have a news content site, and I have an e-mail address dedicated for PHP
> content automation.
>
> What I'm aiming to do here is have PHP grab the e-mail, parse it, and
> update the database.
>
> Parsing and updating the database is no prob. I'm a little clueless on
> how to get PHP to grab e-mails.

A .forward file can be used to pass a file to a pipe.

Ian P. Christian

Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Rob
of comp.lang.php make plain:

> I don't need to be hand-held through it, but if anyone knows reference
> locations (articles, PHP documentation entries, theory, etc), it would
> be a big help.

Well, I can't really give you any references, but I can tell you what
I've learned from experience, as I have quite a number of scripts
operating this way.

First configure your email system to pipe the email to a PHP script. If
you don't know how to do that, you'll have to ask someone familiar with
your particular system and configuration.

The PHP script will need to have a shebang line pointing to the PHP
interpreter, for example:

#!/usr/bin/php -q

as the very first line in the file before the <?php

Then just open /dev/stdin:

$fh = fopen("/dev/stdin", "r");

and read the email from it. Depending on your system setup, there may be
some useful environment and server variables available that can save you
some digging and parsing, so I'd suggest dumping those arrays out to a
file to see what's there.

--
Alan Little
Phorm PHP Form Processor
http://www.phorm.com/

"Rob" <robertkaranfilian@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:<3Pdjb.52$fF.14346451@newssvr21.news.prodigy. com>...
>
> I have a news content site, and I have an e-mail address dedicated for PHP
> content automation.
>
> What I'm aiming to do here is have PHP grab the e-mail, parse it, and update
> the database.
>
> Parsing and updating the database is no prob. I'm a little clueless on how
> to get PHP to grab e-mails.

You have two options:

1. Implement something based on PHP's built-in IMAP functions:

http://www.php.net/imap

Note that I say IMAP, but these functions are equally capable
of working with POP3 and local mailboxes.

2. Go to phpclasses.org and search for a keyword "POP3". There
are a couple of classes there that do not rely on PHP's IMAP
functions (not all hosting services have them enabled), but
implement access to a remote POP3 server directly using the
sockets mechanism.

Cheers,
NC

nc@iname.com (Nikolai Chuvakhin) wrote in message news:<32d7a63c.0310151950.467510dc@posting.google. com>...
> "Rob" <robertkaranfilian@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:<3Pdjb.52$fF.14346451@newssvr21.news.prodigy. com>...
> >
> > I have a news content site, and I have an e-mail address dedicated for PHP
> > content automation.
> >
> > What I'm aiming to do here is have PHP grab the e-mail, parse it, and update
> > the database.
> >
> > Parsing and updating the database is no prob. I'm a little clueless on how
> > to get PHP to grab e-mails.
>
> You have two options:
>
> 1. Implement something based on PHP's built-in IMAP functions:
>
> http://www.php.net/imap
>
> Note that I say IMAP, but these functions are equally capable
> of working with POP3 and local mailboxes.
>
> 2. Go to phpclasses.org and search for a keyword "POP3". There
> are a couple of classes there that do not rely on PHP's IMAP
> functions (not all hosting services have them enabled), but
> implement access to a remote POP3 server directly using the
> sockets mechanism.
>
> Cheers,
> NC

Third options: check out squirrelmail.
http://www.squirrelmail.org/

It works very well for me.

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