PHP mail function, Invalid Address

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I'm not all up-ons with this web development stuff but I'm part way through putting together a website and have come across an irritating problem:

mail("somebody@someaddress.com", $subject, $message, 'From: SomeName <someotherEmail@address.com>' )

It complains about an invalid address, which I know to be the From field I have to set in the header. So what obvious thing am I missing? It works if I just put the email address by itself, but when I try to put a name to it, it blows up in my face!

Posted 12-Aug-10 15:12pm

Anthony Mushrow

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Solution 2

I found a very strange work around to the problem. Calling ini_set("sendmail_from", ""); just prior to calling mail mysteriously allows you to use the friendly name. It's madness.

Posted 12-Aug-10 16:27pm

Anthony Mushrow

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Peter_in_2780 12-Aug-10 22:44pm

Madness indeed! Good to see you've got a workaround.

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Peter_in_2780 · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-12T15:44:00

The fourth arg to mail() is "additional headers", according to the manual. If used to specify a "From:" header, the rest of the line needs to parse as an email address without spaces and angles. "Interpretation" of the sender's email (e.g. adding "SomeName") is done by the recipient's mail agent, using his/her address book.
If the parsing wasn't done, it would open up a(nother) huge email forgery window, so you'll just have to live with sending a plain email address.