Mail merge in PHP

Just for a laugh

The question was, how do you do a mail merge in PHP. OK, it was a question that no-one was asking, but I never let the deter me before.

Input Data $ cat inputdata Tim,Jinkerson, Ben,De Mora, Jes,Ferrier, tjinkers@TJINKERS-GB ~/merge $ cat template FAO: .f1 .f2 Dear .f1 Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York Many thanks Tim tjinkers@TJINKERS-GB ~/merge $

The Program

$ cat mymerge.php $filename = "template"; $mergef = "inputdata"; $fdm = fopen($mergef,"r"); $fnum=1; $mdata = fgets($fdm, 512); while (!feof($fdm)) {   list($f1, $f2, $f3, $f4, $f5) = explode(",", $mdata);   $fd = fopen($filename,"r");   $contents = fread ($fd, filesize($filename));   fclose ($fd);   $ofilename = "file.".$f1.".".$f2.".".$fnum;   $contents=str_replace(".f1", $f1, $contents);   $contents=str_replace(".f2", $f2, $contents);   $contents=str_replace(".f3", $f3, $contents);   $contents=str_replace(".f4", $f4, $contents);   $contents=str_replace(".f5", $f5, $contents);   $fdo = fopen($ofilename,"w");   fwrite ($fdo,$contents);   fclose ($fdo);   $fnum++;   $mdata = fgets($fdm, 512); } fclose ($mergef); ?>

tjinkers@TJINKERS-GB ~/merge
$

For each line of the input data, the program reads the template file as a single string, and then does a replace on the markers for the input date. It writes the results out to a file who's name is based on the input data.

$ php mymerge.php $ ls file.Ben.De Mora.2  file.Jes.Ferrier.3  file.Tim.Jinkerson.1  inputdata  mymerge.php  template tjinkers@TJINKERS-GB ~/merge $ cat file.Tim.Jinkerson.1 FAO: Tim Jinkerson Dear Tim Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York Many thanks Tim tjinkers@TJINKERS-GB ~/merge

$