PHP send an email with image attachment

Question

I'm trying to create a script that will send an image uploaded from an iphone app I'm developing to me in an email.

I've been able to get the script to send me an email with an attachment. However, the attachment is always 0kb.

Here is my code:

// Standard email info


$to = 'example@example.com'; 
 $subject = 'Email with an image attached'; 

 // This variable will be used when declaring the "boundaries"
 // for the different sections of the email
 $boundary = md5(date('r', time()));

 //Initial Headers 
 $headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n"; // <- the "\r\n" indicate a carriage return and newline, respectively
 $headers .= "From: <example@example.com>\r\n";
 $headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=" . $boundary . "\r\n"; // <- This is 
 // saying the there will be more than one (a "mix") of Content Types in this email.
 // The "boundary" value will indicate when each content type will start

  //First Content Type
 $message = "\r\n\r\n--" . $boundary . "\r\n"; // <- This indicates that I'm going to start
 // declaring headers specific to this section of the email. 
 // MAKE SURE there's only ONE(1) "\r\n" between the above boundry and the first header below (Content-Type)
 $message .= "Content-type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\r\n"; // <- Here I'm saying this content should be plain text
 $message .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\r\n\r\n";

 // Body of the email for the headers I just declared 
 $message .= "Someone filled out the form. See their info below:\r\n";
 $message .= "Name:";

//Second Content Type
 $message .= "\r\n\r\n--" . $boundary . "\r\n"; // <- This idicates that I'm going to start 
 // declaring some more headers for the content below
 // MAKE SURE there's only ONE(1) "\r\n" between the above boundry and the first header below (Content-Type)
 $message .= "Content-type: image/jpeg\r\n"; // <- Here I'm saying that this Content Type is for a JPEG image
 $message .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\r\n"; // <- this is saying that this section's content will be base64 Encoded
 $message .= "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"Image.jpg\"\r\n"; // <- This is saying the content below should be an attachment and gives it a file name

 // The base64_encode below is necessary because this is a file. 
 $message .= base64_encode(file_get_contents($_FILES["userfile"]["name"])); 

 $message .= "\r\n\r\n--" . $boundary . "--"; // <- This indicates the end of the boundries. Notice the additional "--" after the boundry's value.

 // Send the email using "mail()".
 // Adding the "$mail_sent = " before "mail()" will store TRUE in $mail_sent if the email is sent successfully
 // Adding the "@" sign before "mail()" will disable error display so users
 // won't see the actual error info if it fails, just "Mail failed".
 $mail_sent = @mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); 

 //Check to see if the email was sent successfully ($mail_sent = true).
 //If so, display "Mail Sent" to the screen, else display "Mail Failed".
 echo $mail_sent ? "Mail sent" : "Mail failed"; 

Everything works fine except the attachment is 0kb.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

        // to, from, subject, message body, attachment filename, etc.
        $to = "to@to.com";
        $from = "from@from.com";
        $subject = "subject";
        $message = "this is the message body";
        $filename = "/home/user/file.jpeg";
        $fname = "file.jpeg";

        $headers = "From: $from"; 
        // boundary 
        $semi_rand = md5(time()); 
        $mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x"; 

        // headers for attachment 
        $headers .= "\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n" . "Content-Type: multipart/mixed;\n" . " boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\""; 

        // multipart boundary 
        $message = "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\n\n" . "--{$mime_boundary}\n" . "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n" . "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n\n" . $message . "\n\n"; 
        $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n";

        // preparing attachments            
            $file = fopen($filename,"rb");
            $data = fread($file,filesize($filename));
            fclose($file);
            $data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));
            $message .= "Content-Type: {\"application/octet-stream\"};\n" . " name=\"".$fname."\"\n" . 
            "Content-Disposition: attachment;\n" . " filename=\"$fname\"\n" . 
            "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\n\n" . $data . "\n\n";
            $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}--\n";


        // send
        //print $message;

        $ok = @mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers, "-f " . $from);          

Answer 2

While there are canned functions for this, what a fantastic exercise for a junior programmer!

Very well written mti2935. It would do folks good to actually read and not just cut-and-paste. If you're sending email with php, you should understand these fundamental concepts.

Probably some oversights from masking your real code:

Line 23 should be:

$data = fread($file,filesize($filename));

That is, $fname should be $filename.

Line 26 should be:

$message .= "Content-Type: {\"application/octet-stream\"};\n" . " name=\"".$fname."\"\n" .

Neither $x nor $files[$x] are defined.

@Thomas Spade: I'd like to remind that you should always sanitize input (email address).

Answer 3

And the closing mime boundary should end in --, so line 29 should read:

$message .= "--{$mime_boundary}--\n";