php code inside html email

Question

I have an html form that is processed by a separate php file. In the php file, there is a section where an html confirmation email is sent to the person filling out the form. I will not post the entire confirmation email section, but here are the headers and the beginning of the message:

$pfw_subject = 'Confirmation of Registration for 28th Annual Insolvency Conference';
$pfw_email_to = "$Email,$AssistantEmail";
$pfw_header = "From: cbfadmin@jbsmgmt.com\n"
. "Bcc: cdrossen@cdrmarketing.com\n"
. "Reply-To: cbfadmin@jbsmgmt.com\n"
. "MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
. "Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1\n";
$pfw_message = "<html>
<head></head>
<body>.....continues

Here is the code of a table row that I am having a hard time with. There are 3 registration types (posted variable is $RegType and choices are Reg1, Reg2, and Reg3) with 3 different prices (posted variables are - $Total_Reg1, $Total_Reg2, $Total_Reg3. In the email I want it to read something like this:

Registration Type: $RegType - $Total_Reg1 Showing the registration type and the price

So I need to know which registration type the person selected in order to get the correct $ Total. Here is what I am attempting to do, but it is not working:

    <tr>
      <td width='35%' height='18'>Registration Type:</td>
      <td width='65%' height='18'>"
      if($RegType == "Reg1"){"
      $RegType - $Total_Reg1"
      else if ($RegType == "Reg2"){"
      $RegType - $Total_Reg2"
      else if ($RegType == "Reg3"){"
      $RegType - $Total_Reg3"
      }"
      </td>
    </tr>

    ....html continues, then finally:

   </body>
   </html>";

What is happening is the email prints out but stops at Registration Type: and does not give the value and also aborts the rest of the email. Probably some sort of syntax error and I'm sure there is a better way to do this so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

hard to say if you're injecting PHP into HTML without PHP tags here. use error reporting http://php.net/manual/en/function.error-reporting.php — Funk Forty Niner, Oct 25 '15 at 01:05
If you can, step into that page with a debugger and check what value is in $RegType. If you are not able to debug, just output what $RegType is there. It is probably either not set, or contains a value you don't expect. If the page were not being processed as PHP, you would probably see your code in the email itself so that is likely not the issue. — Eric J., Oct 25 '15 at 01:07

Christian · Answer 1 · 2015-10-25T01:51:05.487

You're absolutely right, there's definitely some syntax issues going on here. You're defining your HTML in a string, but you can't just abitrarily throw an if statement into the middle of it. You have to format your PHP properly; you need to terminate the string and add onto it. Also, you're missing the end braces on your if statements (I've actually just removed them, because they're 1-liners).

This is generally not a good way to write HTML because it makes it very difficult to read. Regardless...

$pfw_message = "<html><head></head><body><table><tr><td width='35%' height='18'>Registration Type:</td><td width='65%' height='18'>";
if ( $RegType == "Reg1" )
  $pfw_message .= $RegType . ' - ' . $Total_Reg1;
else if ( $RegType == "Reg2" )
  $pfw_message .= $RegType . ' - ' . $Total_Reg2;
else if ( $RegType == "Reg3" )
  $pfw_message .= $RegType . ' - ' . $Total_Reg3;
$pfw_message .= "</td></tr></table></body></html>";

A better method, if doing something like this, involves the use of output buffering. You go back to writing your HTML as HTML, and inject the PHP where required.

<?php

// stuff

ob_start(); ?>

<html>
  <head></head>
  <body>
    <table>
      <tr>
        <td width='35%' height='18'>Registration Type:</td>
        <td width='65%' height='18'>
          <?php
          if ( $RegType == "Reg1" )
            echo $RegType . ' - ' . $Total_Reg1;
          else if ( $RegType == "Reg2" )
            echo $RegType . ' - ' . $Total_Reg2;
          else if ( $RegType == "Reg3" )
            echo $RegType . ' - ' . $Total_Reg3;
          ?>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>

<?php 
$pfw_message = ob_get_clean();
// more stuff

Christian - This worked perfectly. Thank you so much for your help. — cdr6800, Oct 25 '15 at 13:37

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 25 '15 at 01:29

Try This

$pfw_message = ' <html>
<head></head>
<body>
<tr>
  <td width=\'35%\' height=\'18\'>Registration Type:</td>
  <td width=\'65%\' height=\'18\'>"
  if($RegType == "Reg1"){"
  $RegType - $Total_Reg1"
  else if ($RegType == "Reg2"){"
  $RegType - $Total_Reg2"
  else if ($RegType == "Reg3"){"
  $RegType - $Total_Reg3"
  }"
  </td>
</tr>
</body>
</html>';

php code inside html email

2 Answers2