PHP activated by a mail?

Is it possible?

[gutabo]

Is it possible to send a mail to "[e-mail]" with some parameters (could be like
foo=bar
you=not me
or just
bar
not me)
and make a PHP script(or something else) receive the message, and parse it?

Thanks in advance!

[coopster]

If you want to send mail use the mail() function. You can find more information regarding how to use PHP mail in the PHP Manual [us4.php.net].

As far as receiving the mail and parsing...well, that's out of your control. The recipient's server determines how to handle the mail, not you.

[bcolflesh]

Many mail processing progs have options to process mail with external scripts - does your server have procmail?:

procmail.org/

rhols66.adsl.netsonic.fi/era/procmail/mini-faq.html

[wruk999]

gutabo,

You could, if you have access to the server that you host on, edit the aliases file (on unix) and point a email address to a perl file, use the perl file to read any values and arguments, and then use that to pass to PHP.

I thin this is a very basic outline of how it can be done, but I think that it is a possibility.

Cheers,
wruk999

[daisho]

procmail is definatly the way to go if you have it. It's a very powerfull tool. I do just that looking for bounce messages. A mail comes in an a PHP script fires to process it. Then decide weither to pass it to me or delete it.

daisho.

[anchordesk]

Sure ... anything a human on a browser can do can be replicated with some kind of scripting. Addressing the "or something else" rather than the PHP part of your question, the perl module Mail::POP3Client makes it a snap to write a perl script to check a pop3 account and automatically manipulate email to your hearts content. Set the script up to run automatically every few minutes/hours and it's makes for a nice way to handle various concerns of incoming email.

[Timotheos]

I would think it's do able. Here's an interesting article [devshed.com] that would get you started on retrieving the email with PHP. To do it automatically you'll need to set up a cron job.