PHP email form with Validation - not working

Question

Hello;
I am new to using php. I usually use coldfusion or asp but this site requires me to write in php. I have a form I am trying to get to work and right now.. it doesn't do anyhting but remember what you put in the fields. It doesn't want to send, and it won't execute the validation script for the fields that are required. Can anyone help me make this work? I'm confused and a definate newbie to PHP.
Here is my code:
<?php    
              $PHP_SELF = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];   
              $errName    = "";   
              $errEmail    = "";
              $errPhone    = "";        
              if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {        
                      if($_POST["ac"]=="login"){            
                    $FORMOK = TRUE;    // $FORMOK acts as a flag. If you enter any of the conditionals below,                             // it gets set to FALSE, and the e-mail will not be sent.
                    // First Name           
                    if(preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z -]+$/", $_POST["name"]) === 0) {               
                        $errName = '<div class="errtext">Please enter you name.</div>';               
                        $FORMOK = FALSE;           
                    // Email           
                if(preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z]\w+(\.\w+)*\@\w+(\.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)*\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}$/", $_POST["email"]) === 0) {                                                    $errEmail = '<div class="errtext">Please enter a valid email.</div>';               
                        $FORMOK = FALSE;           
                    // Phone           
                    if(preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z -]+$/", $_POST["phone"]) === 0) {               
                        $errPhone = '<div class="errtext">Please enter your phone number.</div>';               
                        $FORMOK = FALSE;           
                    if($FORMOK) {               
                            $to = "[email protected]";  
                            $subject = "my. - Contact Form";                  
                            $name_field = $_POST['name'];               
                            $email_field = $_POST['email'];               
                            $phone_field = $_POST['phone'];
                            $city_field = $_POST['city'];
                            $state_field = $_POST['state'];               
                            $message = $_POST['comment'];                
                            $message = "               
                            Name: $name_field               
                            Email: $email_field
                            Phone: $phone_field   
                            City: $city_field   
                            State: $state_field               
                            Message: $message";                
                            $headers  = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . "\r\n";               
                            $headers .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . "\r\n";                
                            // Additional headers               
                            $headers .= 'To: <[email protected]>' . "\r\n";               
                            $headers .= '[From] <$email_field>' . "\r\n";                
                            // Mail it               
                            mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);                
                            header("Location: thankyou.php")
                            // I have no idea what these next 3 lines are for. You may just want to get rid of them.                   
ini_set("sendmail_from","[Send from]");
ini_set("SMTP","[mail server]");
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
                            } else {               
                            echo "Error!";              
                    ?>
<form method="post" action="<?php $PHP_SELF ?>" id="commentForm">
<input name="name" size="40" value="<?php echo $_POST["name"]; ?>" type="text">
                     <?php  if(isset($errName)) echo $errName; ?>
<input name="email" size="40" value="<?php echo $_POST["email"]; ?>"  type="text">
        <?php  if(isset($errEmail)) echo $errEmail; ?>
<input name="phone" size="40" value="<?php echo $_POST["phone"]; ?>" type="text" id="phone">
        <?php  if(isset($errPhone)) echo $errPhone; ?>
<input name="city" size="40" value="<?php echo $_POST["city"]; ?>" type="text" id="city">
<input name="state" size="40" value="<?php echo $_POST["state"]; ?>" type="text" id="state">
<textarea name="comment" cols="30" rows="10" id="comment"><?php echo $_POST["comment"]; ?></textarea>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit" class="contact-submit" />
</form>
It seems pretty simple.. but it's not working at all. I would also like this page to submit to it's self, and when it actually does send an email, to just make the form disappear and replace it with the thank you text instead of sending you to another page. I also do not need to use an smtp server, it goes directly to the network server when sent.
I'm really sorry to ask all of this, I'm trying to learn this language and need to make this work.
Thank you for anyones help in advance.

Answer 1

.oO(BarryGBrown)
> I have a php file which generates an email from a form
in a website I have
>designed. I just want to make some areas of the final
generated email in bold
>text. I know if people have plain text only selected in
their email client they
>won't see the bold text, but at least it will reach a
certain percentage of
>users.
You can't do bold text in a normal email. Plain text is just
that -
plain text. For anything more you need HTML. _If_ you should
need it.
Usually plain text serves pretty well and is the most
efficient way.
> the line in question is -
>
> $body ="Booking request details from website:\n\n";
>
> I have tried putting  and ,
syntax is used in some forum software, but besides that it
has
no meaning whatsoever.
>inside the inverted commas, outside
>etc, plus tried different declarations within the
<head>, nothing works! What
>am I doing wrong?
You would have to create an entire HTML email with all the
required
headers and boundaries. Quite difficult to do by hand with
PHP's mail()
function.
> I am a beginner with this php stuff, please be kind!
Then you should start simple with plain text. There are some
classes out
there which make it easy to generate text and HTML emails
(phpmailer for
example), but you should be familiar with PHP coding if you
want to use
them.
Micha