How to Make a PHP Mailing List

PHP is a versatile language that can handle most server tasks for any website. Mailing lists are a popular component of web activity, and PHP can manage them with ease. Since PHP is automatically connected to a site's internal mail server, the language can generate emails to a pre-defined list of recipients. Every aspect of the email may be customized, including the sender's address and name, "CC" fields and other email headers. The complexity of the mailing list interface is limited only by the creativity of the PHP programming. Simple programs can take an existing list and send the same email to everyone.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Web server with PHP

1. Step 1

   Confirm that your Web server offers access to the PHP compiler. Most Linux-based Web servers include this by default. However, some hosting providers limit access to these components of the server. If you do not have PHP access, you cannot build a PHP mailing list.

2. Step 2

   Create a text file of email addresses. This will be the mailing list. Put one email address on each line. Name the file list.txt or another recognizable label.

3. Step 3

   Program the first part of a PHP script to read the list.txt file. The algorithm is basic and uses the PHP file() command to open a text file. (See References) Each line in list.txt is read individually using a for() loop. Inside the loop, the extracted line is assigned to an array for processing later.

4. Step 4

   Add a second part to the same PHP script that processes the array of email addresses. Another for() loop reads each array entry and uses the mail() command to send a single email to that address. The loop cycles until all the addresses in the array are processed. The mail() command contains the contents of the email message and the email headers, including the sender's name and address and any other fields, such as "CC" and "BCC."

5. Step 5

   Upload the list.txt address file and the PHP script to the Web server and place them together in the same directory.

6. Step 6

   Visit the URL of the PHP script to automatically generate emails to everyone on the list.