Sending an email with a csv attachment from an html form

Question

I started fresh in programming and tried to send an email using php with a csv file as an attachment. Right now, after pressing "submit", I receive an email with the necessary information, but the attached csv file is empty and I don't know why.

I've tried several things and failed and would like to know the solution from this point on:

<?php
if(isset($_POST['Absenden']))
{
    $firstname = $_POST ['firstname'];
    $lastname = $_POST ['lastname'];
    $email = $_POST ['email'];
    $phone = $_POST ['phone'];
    $job = $_POST ['job'];
    $address = $_POST ['address'];
    $message = $_POST ['message'];

    $subject= "Schüleranmeldung $firstname $lastname";
    $recipient = "mymail";
    
    $seperator = md5(time());
    $eol = "\r\n";
    // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12301358/send-attachments-with-php-mail
    $mailheader = "From: $email " . $eol;
    $mailheader .= "MIME-Version: 1.0 " . $eol;
    $mailheader .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"" . $seperator . "\"" . $eol . $eol;
    
    /* The email body */
    
    $txt = "--" . $seperator . $eol;
    $txt .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"" . $eol;
    $txt .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" . $eol;
    $txt .= "Anmerkung: \n $message \n\n Name: $lastname \n Vorname: $firstname \n Beruf: $job \n Telefonnummer: $phone \n Adresse: $address" . $eol;
    $txt .= "--" . $seperator . $eol;

    //Content of csv file (two lines)
    $csv = "Vorname,Nachname,Address,Email,Telefon,Beruf\n";
    $csv .= "$firstname,$lastname,$address,$email,$phone,$job\n";
    
    // $content = file_get_contents($file);
    $content = chunk_split(base64_encode($csv));
    
    $FileName = $lastname."-".$firstname."-".date("d-m-y-h:i:s").".txt";
    
    $txt .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"" .   $FileName . "\"" . $eol;
    $txt .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64" . $eol;
    $txt .= "Content-Disposition: attachment" . $eol;
    $txt .= $content . $eol . $eol;
    $txt .= "--" . $seperator . "--";

        mail($recipient, $subject, $txt, $mailheader);

        echo "<pre>" . $csv . "</pre>";
        echo "<pre>" . $content . "</pre>";

} 
?>

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Using PHPMailer

PHPMailer uses SMTP, so you have to create an email and password as a sender email then set your parameters

    <?php
//Import PHPMailer classes into the global namespace
//These must be at the top of your script, not inside a function
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\SMTP;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

//Load Composer's autoloader
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

//Create an instance; passing `true` enables exceptions
$mail = new PHPMailer(true);

try {
//Server settings
$mail->SMTPDebug = SMTP::DEBUG_SERVER;                      //Enable verbose debug output
$mail->isSMTP();                                            //Send using SMTP
$mail->Host       = 'smtp.example.com';                     //Set the SMTP server to send through
$mail->SMTPAuth   = true;                                   //Enable SMTP authentication
$mail->Username   = 'user@example.com';                     //SMTP username
$mail->Password   = 'secret';                               //SMTP password
$mail->SMTPSecure = PHPMailer::ENCRYPTION_SMTPS;            //Enable implicit TLS encryption
$mail->Port       = 465;                                    //TCP port to connect to; use 587 if you have set `SMTPSecure = PHPMailer::ENCRYPTION_STARTTLS`

//Recipients
$mail->setFrom('from@example.com', 'Mailer');
$mail->addAddress('joe@example.net', 'Joe User');     //Add a recipient
$mail->addAddress('ellen@example.com');               //Name is optional
$mail->addReplyTo('info@example.com', 'Information');
$mail->addCC('cc@example.com');
$mail->addBCC('bcc@example.com');

//Attachments
$mail->addAttachment('/var/tmp/file.tar.gz');         //Add attachments
$mail->addAttachment('/tmp/image.jpg', 'new.jpg');    //Optional name

//Content
$mail->isHTML(true);                                  //Set email format to HTML
$mail->Subject = 'Here is the subject';
$mail->Body    = 'This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>';
$mail->AltBody = 'This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients';

$mail->send();
echo 'Message has been sent';
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo "Message could not be sent. Mailer Error: {$mail->ErrorInfo}";
}

let me know if you have any questions