PHP Mail Reference

How it works

mail depends on the host’s configured transport, and a successful handoff is not proof that a recipient received the message. A maintained mail library or service can supply MIME handling and a clearer delivery integration. Validate address/header inputs, prevent header injection and keep credentials outside source. Use an in-memory collecting adapter when testing a feature that should request a notification.

Run it locally

Run this complete source locally with PHP 8.2 or newer. Save it using the filename shown and run the command below. PHP is not currently available in Bhylu’s browser playground. Apache and MySQL are not needed for an ordinary CLI example.

php -l ref-mail.php
php ref-mail.php

Download this source as a local PHP lab file. Keep lab files separate from the Bhylu project and production data.

Example

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

$recipient = "reader@example.test";
$subject = "Loan receipt";
if (filter_var($recipient,FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) === false || str_contains($subject,"\r") || str_contains($subject,"\n")) throw new InvalidArgumentException("Invalid mail fields");
$queue = [];
$queue[] = ["to"=>$recipient,"subject"=>$subject,"body"=>"Your fictional loan was recorded."];
echo count($queue), " message prepared; none sent\n";

Expected result

1 message prepared; none sent

The array is a test outbox, not a live transport. It checks that the application prepared one intended notification while making no external communication. Production email also needs user/privacy preferences, retry/idempotency decisions and appropriate provider configuration; these cannot be validated by a local format check.

Contracts to check

Related API names

This alphabetic inventory helps locate related calls. Availability was checked in the review runtime; it is not a recommendation to use every API or a claim that every overload/function was executed. Read the official entry for version, extension, failure and security details.