Using the mail() function in php

I've been using this function quite a lot. I just want to share how to use this function which is very easy.

The mail() function in php is used to send email.

Examples :

$to = "name@example.com";
$subject = "Test Subject"; //be careful to have this as one line or it will not be sent properly
$message = "This is the message";

// sends am email to $to email address with subject $subject and message $message
mail($to, $subject, $message);

//example header
$headers = "From : admin@example.com
Reply-To : admin@example.com";

//this time we added the optional parameter headers
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);


That's basically it. Now you know how to send emails in php.

Exporting mysql data to csv

Today I'm going to discuss the opposite of the previous post. Here it is :

/*some checking here like if the user is logged in, this is important in cases where we don't want other users to get hold of the data*/

//connect to the mysq;
define('host', 'localhost'); //Mysql Server name
define('database', 'dbname'); //Mysql Database name
define('user', 'dbuser'); //Mysql Username
define('password', 'dbpassword'); //Mysql Password
$dbtable = "dbtable";
$connection = mysql_connect(host,user,password);
$db = mysql_select_db(database,$connection);

$sql = mysql_query("select * from ".$dbtable.");

$fields = mysql_list_fields("yourdatabasename",$dbtable);
$columns = mysql_num_fields($fields);
$output = '';

// Put the name of all fields
for ($i = 0; $i < $columns; $i++)
{
$l=mysql_field_name($fields, $i);
$output .= '"'.$l.'",';
}

$output .="\n";

//we now put all values from table
while ($l = mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
for ($i = 0; $i < $columns; $i++)
{
$output .='"'.$l["$i"].'",';
}

$output .="\n";
}

// Output to browser with appropriate mime type, you choose
header("Content-type: text/x-csv");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=yourcsvfile.csv");
echo $output;
exit;

?>

This script will prompt for a download for the csvfile named yourcsvfile.csv which contain all the columns and entries from the table dbtable.

Importing a csv file to mysql

This is one of the things I did with my current project. It is about adding data on MySQL using a csv file and I thought I should share what I did.

First we need to have an html form that will ask for the file input. It will be something like this one:

[form action="import_csv.php" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"]
[input name="csv" type="file"]
[input name="filesubmit" value="Submit" type="submit"]
[/form]

Note: Replace "[" and "]" with "<" and ">" respectively. I did it like this because this blog won't allow attaching of html tags.

The enctype attribute is very important because it specifies to use "multipart/form-data" as content type for the form. This also means that the form requires a binary data like the file. The file input type specifies the input is looking for a file. This will appear as a text field with a browse button next to it.

Then we need our php script that will process the csv file and save the entries on the database.

//this is where the file is stored temporarily
$csvfile = $_FILES['csvfile']['tmp_name'];

$file = fopen($csvfile, "r"); //we now open the file
$filesize = filesize($csvfile); //get the filesize

$contents = fread($file, $filesize); //read contents of the file
fclose($file); //close file

$linecount = 0;
$linedata = array();

//you can modify "\n" if your csv file is ended differently
foreach(split("\n",$contents) as $line)
{
$line = trim($line," \t");
$line = str_replace("\r","",$line);
$line = str_replace("'","\'",$line);
$linedata = explode(",",$line);
$mysqlline = implode("','",$linedata);
$linecount++;

//insert the data into the database
//replace $yourtablename with your mysql table name
$sql = mysql_query("insert into '.$yourtablename.' values('$mysqlline')");
}

That's it. We have a simple php script that accepts a csv file and then reads the contents and save the data into your mysql database. Of course this still needs to be optimize. We need to check if the file input is really a csv file. Or is the file empty or too large? I will leave it up to you.

Oh, and be sure that you connect to mysql first. :)

Another web programming day with phpGoogleStoreLocator Part 2

It's been a very slow day... at least for my programming. As for everything, it's been a very tough day. We've been hit by a big typhoon and it's been raining very for almost 2 days now. It even became a super typhoon on some parts of the country and lots of properties were destroyed already. Internet here also went down for about 12 hours. What a day!

Anyway, I just continued working on my current project which involves the phpGoogleStoreLocator script. What I did last time did great, according to my boss, but what is needed is to make the template look a lot better and add some functions on the admin area. Functions include having a control for the admin to add data for the store maps by uploading csv files or grabbing the data by downloading a csv file for the existing database. And also a few additional controls to further control the store locator script.

I'm also starting on another project about a fund raising website. The project looks good and sounds very interesting. The web site helps fund raisers reach their goals through sports online.

This is it for now. I will go through further details next time.

Another web programming day with phpGoogleStoreLocator

It's been a very tiring day for me. It's raining hard the whole day. Today, I continued with what I have been programming the past 2 days. I've been working on a store locator for a dietary supplement drink website. I've been using this very cool php script phpGoogleStoreLocator which you can download here.

phpGoogleStoreLocator is an application that uses the Google Maps API service which can serve as a store locator in your website. It is very easy to set up and these are all you need to get it running:

• Google API Key (http://maps.google.com/apis/maps/)
• Webserver with php 4.0+
• MySQL 3.0+

Very good right? It is compatible with different browsers too. These are the browsers that are compatible with it right now:

• Internet Explorer 5.5+
• Mozilla/Firefox 1.0+
  
• Safari 1.2+
• Konqueror 3.0+
• Galeon 1.2+
• Epiphany 1.0+
• Flock 1.0+
• Opera 9.01

To install, just extract the files to a directory and run install.php. You will know what to do when you get there. Remember to delete your install.php file after installing.

Some of it's features are :

• A Google Map
  
• Customizable Map Icons
• Balloon images for store locations
• Stores are searchable by country, street address, city, state and zip code.
  
• Support for address level geocoding for the US, UK, CA, AU, All of Europe, Taiwan, India, and New Zealand
• City level geocoding for the entire planet

It also has an admin panel and a customizable layout which is very easy. You can see the full features here.

What I have been doing the past 2 days were modifying some parts of the script and also the template to suit the site owner's requirements. So far so good and it's working like the way he wanted it to be. I'm just waiting for some feedbacks after he finished testing the site. If there are any problems then I will be working on it again tomorrow. For now I'll be on stadnby on that part and I'm going to work on another project for another client. I'll talk about this one tomorrow.

Blogging Sounds Fun

After hearing about blogs from friends and the internet, I decided to make my own blog. I thought it's better to let out my thoughts and share it with other people who might be interested. And I thought it would be better to have like an online diary for my life as a freelance web programmer and share what I have learn for all the times I've been working and of course share what I'm going to learn in the future.

This is good because not only I get to share my thoughts and experiences, I can also get people to share their opinions and can help me improve in some ways. I might also want to look back in the future for all the things I've done with my work and this would be very helpful because I can look back and relive those things again. Oh yeah.. this can help me improve my english too! :D

For the my next blog entries, I will post the daily things I have done and perhaps an overview of what I'm going to do on the next few days(or months). I'm hoping and very excited to write my next entry soon. Till then...