PHP

Using Replace Patterns in Email

See more Email Object Examples

Demonstrates how to use the replace patterns (mail-merge) feature in Chilkat MailMan. Chilkat2 PHP

<?php

use Chilkat2\Email;
use Chilkat2\JsonObject;
use Chilkat2\MailMan;

// This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
// See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

// ---------------------------------------------------------------------
// Create an email template for sending.
$emailTemplate = new Email();

// We're going to replace "FIRST_NAME" with an actual name.
// We arbitrarily chose "FIRST_NAME".  We can choose anything, such as "CUSTOMER_NAME" or "THE_RECIPIENT_NAME"...
$emailTemplate->Subject = 'Hello FIRST_NAME,';

$emailTemplate->From = 'john@example.com';
$emailTemplate->AddTo('FIRST_NAME', 'RECIPIENT_EMAIL');

$emailTemplate->SetHtmlBody('<html><body><h2>Hello FIRST_NAME,</h2><p>Your order for PRODUCT_NAME has been shipped.</p></body></html>');

// If the email is saved to a file, we can see what it contains:
$emailTemplate->SaveEml('qa_output/emailTemplate.eml');

// For example:

// MIME-Version: 1.0
// Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 07:10:52 -0500
// Message-ID: <715CF231A9F07B0B9FDB073518CD94138D791866@XYZ>
// Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
// Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
// X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
// Subject: Hello FIRST_NAME,
// From: john@example.com
// To: FIRST_NAME <RECIPIENT_EMAIL>
//
// <html><body><h2>Hello FIRST_NAME,</h2><p>Your order for PRODUCT_NAME has been shipped.</p></body></html>

// ---------------------------------------------------------------------
// Demonstrate replace patterns by setting and then rendering to MIME.

$mailman = new MailMan();

$emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('FIRST_NAME', 'Elon');
$emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('RECIPIENT_EMAIL', 'elon.musk@example.com');
$emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('PRODUCT_NAME', 'Twitter Corporation');

// Render to MIME to see what we get.
// Note: When the MailMan sends an email, it renders the email to MIME and then sends.
// The rendering process is to do replacements, or possibly sign, encrypt, etc.
// When MailMan.SendEmail is called, internally the email is rendered, and the rendered email is sent.
// The equivalent to MailMan.Send email is to call email.RenderToMime followed by MailMan.SendMime.
$mime = $mailman->RenderToMime($emailTemplate);
echo $mime, "\n";

// This is the rendered MIME:

// MIME-Version: 1.0
// Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 07:25:49 -0500
// Message-ID: <750582BCDC891C67B48CEE2293C08B902C3891E9@XYZ>
// Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
// Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
// X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
// Subject: Hello Elon,
// From: john@example.com
// To: Elon <elon.musk@example.com>
//
// <html><body><h2>Hello Elon,</h2><p>Your order for Twitter Corporation has been shipped.</p></body></html>

// Note: When rendering, the Date and Message-ID headers are automatically regenerated.

// ---------------------------------------------------------------------
// An application can see what replacement patterns it previously set by calling SetReplacePattern multiple times.
$count = $emailTemplate->NumReplacePatterns;
echo 'Number of replace patterns: ', $count, "\n";

$i = 0;
while ($i < $count) {
    // Note: The GetReplaceString method was found to not be working correctly.  It was returning the same value as GetReplacePattern.
    // It is fixed in Chilkat v9.5.0.91
    echo $emailTemplate->GetReplacePattern($i), ': ', $emailTemplate->GetReplaceString($i), "\n";
    $i = $i + 1;
}

// Or lookup a replacement pattern by name:
$name = 'FIRST_NAME';
echo $name, ' = ', $emailTemplate->GetReplaceString2($name), "\n";

// Sample output:

// Number of replace patterns: 3
// FIRST_NAME: Elon
// RECIPIENT_EMAIL: elon.musk@example.com
// PRODUCT_NAME: Twitter Corporation
// FIRST_NAME = Elon

// ---------------------------------------------------------------------
// Finally... demonstrate sending emails using the replacement patterns.
//

// Set our mail server settings..
$mailman->SmtpHost = 'smtp.mail.us-west-2.awsapps.com';
$mailman->SmtpSsl = true;
$mailman->SmtpPort = 465;

$mailman->SmtpUsername = 'john@example.com';
$mailman->SmtpPassword = 'the_password';

// Imagine we have data in JSON format, and we wish to send the templated email to each recipient...
//

// {
//     "mail_merge" : [
//         {
//             "to": "mary@example.com",
//             "name": "Mary",
//             "product": "Widget 1"
//         },
//         {
//             "to": "robert@example.com",
//             "name": "Robert",
//             "product": "Widget 2"
//         }
//         ...
//     ]
// }

$json = new JsonObject();
try {
    $json->LoadFile('qa_data/json/mail_merge.json');
} catch (\Chilkat2\Exception $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage(), "\n";
    exit;
}

$emailAddr = '';
$firstName = '';
$product = '';

$i = 0;
$count = $json->SizeOfArray('mail_merge');
while ($i < $count) {
    $json->I = $i;
    $emailAddr = $json->StringOf('mail_merge[i].to');
    $firstName = $json->StringOf('mail_merge[i].name');
    $product = $json->StringOf('mail_merge[i].product');

    $emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('FIRST_NAME', $firstName);
    $emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('RECIPIENT_EMAIL', $emailAddr);
    $emailTemplate->SetReplacePattern('PRODUCT_NAME', $product);

    try {
        $mailman->SendEmail($emailTemplate);
    } catch (\Chilkat2\Exception $e) {
        echo $e->getMessage(), "\n";
        exit;
    }

    echo 'Send email to ', $emailAddr, "\n";

    $i = $i + 1;
}

echo "Success.\n";