CSV attachment in PHP

Question

I am trying to send a CSV file as an attachment in PHP and using mail function for attachments. The following code works fine. It successfully attaches the CSV file and sends it to the recipient but the ATTACHED output file (sent in email) comes in text format(.txt). I don't know where i am making mistake and what i need to change in header to retain original CSV file format in attached email.

        $path ="/myhost/public_html/csv/"; 
        $file_name = $path."Test";
        $file_name.=".csv";
        $from     = "some@myemail.co.uk";
        $to       = "other@hisemail.co.uk";
        $fat=$file_name;
        $subject  = $_POST[subject];
        //   $message  = $_POST[message];
        //replace \n with <br>
        $message = str_replace("\n", "<br>",$message);
        //report
        echo "<b><font color=#8080FF> From: $from </b><br>";
        echo "<b>To: $to </b><br>";
        echo "<b>Subject: $subject</b><br><br></font>";
        // Obtain file upload variables
        $fileatt      = $_FILES[$fat]['tmp_name'];
        $fileatt_type = $_FILES[$fat]['type'];
        $fileatt_name = $_FILES[$fat]['name'];

        $headers = "From: $from  \n";


        // if($_FILES['fileatt']['size'] > 0)
        if (file_exists($fat)) {
           // Read the file to be attached ('rb' = read binary)
           $file = fopen($fat,'rb');
           $data = fread($file,filesize($fat));
           fclose($file);
           // Generate a boundary string
           $semi_rand = md5(time());
           $mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x";
           // Add the headers for a file attachment
           $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" .
                    "Content-Type: multipart/mixed;\n" .
                    " boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\"";
           // Add a multipart boundary above the  message
           $message = "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\n\n" .
           "--{$mime_boundary}\n" .
           "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n" .
           "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n\n" .
           $message . "\n\n";

           // Base64 encode the file data
           $data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));
           // Add file attachment to the message
           $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n" .
           "Content-Type: {$fileatt_type};\n" .
           " name=\"{$fileatt_name}\"\n" .
           //"Content-Disposition: attachment;\n" .
           //" filename=\"{$fileatt_name}\"\n" .
           "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\n\n" .
           $data . "\n\n" .
           "--{$mime_boundary}--\n";
        } else echo "File error!  ";

        //send the mail
        if(mail($to, $subject, $message,$headers))echo "<b><font color=#FF0000>Message was sent!<b></font>";
        else echo "<b><font color=#FF0000>Message error!<b></font>";

I just want to retain original file format in email attachments. Help me please.

Answer 1

I would recommend using a library to handle email attachments. This kind of thing can get complicated quickly and someone else out there has already figured out all the ins and outs of what needs to happen when CSV files are attached. I would use something like http://swiftmailer.org/

You could do all of the code you have above, or something more like...

require_once 'lib/swift_required.php';

$message = Swift_Message::newInstance()
  ->setSubject('Your subject')
  ->setFrom(array('john@doe.com' => 'John Doe'))
  ->setTo(array('receiver@domain.org', 'other@domain.org' => 'A name'))
  ->setBody('Here is the message itself')
  ->addPart('<q>Here is the message itself</q>', 'text/html')
  ->attach(Swift_Attachment::fromPath('my-document.csv'));

Example from: http://swiftmailer.org/docs/messages.html

Answer 2

$header .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"\r\n"; // use different content types here
$header .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"".$filename."\"\r\n\r\n";

this might be helpful ?