Sending Email with AJAX: Interacting with the Server

Having listed the (X)HTML file, which runs the corresponding client-side code, here are the pair of PHP files that send email and process contact data, along with a sample contact XML file:

<?php
// ***************************************************
// sendmail.php file - sends email
//
//****************************************************
// clean up POST data
array_map('trim',$_POST);
// check if 'recipient' field has been filled or not
if(!$_POST['to']||$_POST['to']=='TO: '){
    echo 'STATUS: PLEASE SPECIFY AN EMAIL ADDRESS';
    exit();
}
// check if 'subject' field has been filled or not
if(!$_POST['subject']||$_POST['subject']=='SUBJECT: '){
    echo 'STATUS: PLEASE SPECIFY A SUBJECT';
    exit();
}
// check if 'message' field has been filled or not
if(!$_POST['message']){
    echo 'STATUS: PLEASE ENTER YOUR MESSAGE';
    exit();
}
// get message fields
$to=str_replace('TO:','',$_POST['to']);
$subject=str_replace('SUBJECT:','',$_POST['subject']);
$message=$_POST['message'];
// define MIME headers
$headers="MIME-Version 1.0\r\n"."Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n"."From: myaddress@mydomain.com\r\n"."Reply-to: myaddress@mydomain.com\r\n";
// check if 'CC' field has been filled or not
if(!empty($_POST['cc'])&&$_POST['cc']!='CC: '){
    $headers.="Cc: ".str_replace('CC:','',$_POST['cc'])."\r\n";
}
// check if 'Bcc' field has been filled or not
if(!empty($_POST['bcc'])&&$_POST['bcc']!='BCC: '){
    $headers.="Bcc: ".str_replace('BCC:','',$_POST
['bcc'])."\r\n";
}
// send email
if(!mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers)){
    echo 'STATUS: ERROR SENDING MESSAGE';
    exit();
}
else{
    echo 'STATUS: MESSAGE WAS SENT SUCCESSFULLY';
    exit();
}
?>

<?php
// ***************************************************
// addcontact.php file – adds new contact to XML file
//
//****************************************************
$file='contacts.xml';
$str='<contact>'."\n".'<name>'.$_POST
['fullname'].'</name>'."\n".'<email>'.$_POST
['email'].'</email>'."\n".'</contact>'."\n".'</contactlist>';
if(!$fp=fopen($file,'r+')){
            trigger_error('Error opening contacts
file',E_USER_ERROR);
}
$contents=fread($fp,filesize($file));
rewind($fp);
$contents=str_replace('</contactlist>',$str,$contents);
//header('Content-Type: text/xml');
fwrite($fp,$contents);
fclose($fp);
// sample contact XML file
?>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<contactlist>
<contact>
<name>Full Name 1</name>
<email>address1@domain1.com</email>
</contact>
<contact>
<name> Full Name 2</name>
<email> address2@domain2.com </email>
</contact>
<contact>
<name> Full Name 3</name>
<email> address3@domain3.com </email>
</contact>
<contact>
<name> Full Name 4</name>
<email> address4@domain4.com </email>
</contact>
<contact>
<name> Full Name 5</name>
<email> address5@domain5.com </email>
</contact>
</contactlist>

Bottom line

After some hard work, this is the end of the series. Over these tutorials, I went through the development of an AJAX-driven email client, by progressively building the JavaScript/(X)HTML layers, as well as coding the respective PHP files that interact with the server. Hopefully, this series has illustrated the particulars of working with multiple http requester objects across a single application, in conjunction with extending a little more the boundaries of your background in AJAX. Now you that have the knowledge and the willpower, start creating AJAX-based applications. It’s really fun!