PHP Forms Question

[bad959fl]

Hello,

I'm currently using a basic formmail.pl script for the forms on my website. I have a newsletter signup option on all of my forms for visitors to subscribe. Up until now, I have been importing the email addresses and names into a text file for my mailing list. I basically copy and paste each entry. Since the newsletter is reaching 2,000 entries and the signup have been increasing every day, this is becoming a major burden on managing.

I would like to get some assistance for creating a PHP form which will do all of these tasks:

1. Only capture email address and first name for visitors who check the newsletter signup box.
2. Output the visitors email address and name into a flat file on the server.
3. Format the email and name like this:

"anyone1@email.com","Name"
"anyone2@email.com","Name"
"anyone3@email.com","Name"

4. Check and make sure any duplicate email addresses will not be added to the text file.

You can review one of my current forms here:

http://www.shapefit.com/quiz.html

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[DRJ478]

I am surprised you are not using a majordomo application like Mailman to handle the newsletter list.

But, anyway - the script you want to write is quite simple.
1. Capturing the e-mail address and firstname from input in the form is done anyway (they are all in $_POST. The code will have to check for the presence of the checkbox value and do what's step 2 and 3.
2. I would do your step #3 befor committing it to the file.
Formatting is quite easy.

$line= '"'.$_POST['email'].'","'.$_POST['name'].'"'."\n";

Validation of the proper e-mail format would be good, also checking that no offending characters are in the name (some idi** may type in double quotes etc.).
3. You'll have to open the file and read it. There's no way around that if you use a flat file. A regular expression (preg_match()) will make sure it's not in there yet.
Then append to the end and write out the file.
With 2000 records a database might be quite helpful, as you can search and ascertain quickly if the e-mail address is already enrolled.
The flat file - if needed by the mail software - can easily produced just before the softeware send the newsletter.

These are the basic ideas. If you need more concrete help, let us know.

 

[bad959fl]

DRJ478-

Thanks for the info. I have a sample script which I have had help with and been working on for the last few days. I just posted it on this forum. I'm having a hard time receiving specific info from the form.

If you have a sec, can you check it out?

Thanks!