Generating personal mail

Question

I'm trying to make a function in admin panel of my project, that will be sending e-mails with some dynamic parameters in format *|folder:function|*. E.g.: I write in text form

Hello, *|USER:FIRSTNAME|*. 
You can *|START-LINKS:ACTIVATE|*activate*|END-LINKS|* your account. 
Also you can *|START-LINKS:UNSUBSCRIBE|*unsubscribe*|END-LINKS|*.

and want to get

Hello, John.
You can <a href="http://example.com/?do=activate&user_id=useridfromdatabase&unique=4se5dr6ftygyuertcfvgbh">activate</a> your account.
Also you can <a href="http://example.com/?do=unsubscribe&user_id=useridfromdatabase&unique=45r6ftetdf3445656576yt">unsubscribe</a>

But I don't know how I can replace my tags with the data that I needed. Can anybody help me with that?

Use [str_replace()](http://nl3.php.net/str_replace) or search for any other useful [string function](http://nl3.php.net/manual/en/ref.strings.php) — giorgio, Sep 23 '14 at 12:11
Either simply replace in the string or use regular expression http://fr2.php.net/manual-lookup.php?pattern=replace&scope=quickref — AMS, Sep 23 '14 at 12:13
You've been unable to replace `*|USER:FIRSTNAME|*` with `John` using `str_replace()`? May we see your failed attempt? — Álvaro González, Sep 23 '14 at 12:16
@Kirill Danshin go on php.net and read the documentation maybe this could be a good start — AMS, Sep 23 '14 at 12:17
@KirillDanshin If you don't want to show us what you've tried, you shouldn't post on stack overflow. We're not a "give me teh codez" site. If you want someone else to make your code, you can [**hire a paid freelancer**](http://www.freelancer.com). You can also read [**How to create a Minimal, Complete and Verifiable example**](http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve). — h2ooooooo, Sep 23 '14 at 12:19
@h2ooooooo I found my fail: I add \ in *| (result - *\|), and I was think, that it's ok. — Kirill Danshin, Sep 23 '14 at 12:24
@KirillDanshin Are you using `str_replace` or `preg_replace`? The latter is for **regex** and not strings. If you just want to change an exact string, use `str_replace`. — h2ooooooo, Sep 23 '14 at 12:25
@h2ooooooo str_replace. No, I changing string, and then I want to send it with PHPMailer — Kirill Danshin, Sep 23 '14 at 12:28
@KirillDanshin [I cannot confirm that you need to escape the '\' ?](https://eval.in/197372) — h2ooooooo, Sep 23 '14 at 12:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '14 at 12:16

$bodytag = str_replace("*|USER:FIRSTNAME|*", "John", "Hello, *|USER:FIRSTNAME|*. 
You can *|START-LINKS:ACTIVATE|*activate*|END-LINKS|* your account. 
Also you can *|START-LINKS:UNSUBSCRIBE|*unsubscribe*|END-LINKS|*.");

This is what you ask for but you have many possibilities str_replace, regular expression or sprintf

http://fr2.php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php http://fr2.php.net/manual-lookup.php?pattern=replace&scope=quickref

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

Use something like

$email_body = str_replace("*|USER:FIRSTNAME|*, $users_name, $email_body");

If you can help it, don't try and be too clever, because when it breaks in two years time, you'll have no idea how to fix it quickly.

If you insist on doing it slightly more cleverly, use this function to get the data between your beginning and end characters and explode() the contents by the : character.

Generating personal mail

2 Answers2