Setting php variable in html file using file_get_contents()

Question

I have an automated email system set up to send an html file as an email. I bring that file into my email with PHPMailer, using

$mail->msgHTML(file_get_contents('mailContent.html'), dirname(__FILE__));

In the PHP source, before I add the mailContent.html, I have a variable $name='John Appleseed' (it is dynamic, this is just an example)

In the HTML file, I'm wondering if there is a way that I can use this $name variable in a <p> tag.

Answer 1

You can add a special string like %name% in your mailContent.html file, then you can replace this string with the value your want:

In mailContent.html:

Hello %name%,
…

In your PHP code:

$name='John Appleseed';

$content = str_replace('%name%', $name, file_get_contents('mailContent.html'));

$content will have the value Hello %name%, …, you can send it:

$mail->msgHTML($content, dirname(__FILE__));

---

You can also replace several strings in one call to str_replace() by using two arrays:

$content = str_replace(
    array('%name%', '%foo%'),
    array($name,    $foo),
    file_get_contents('mailContent.html')
);

---

And you can also replace several strings in one call to strtr() by using one array:

$content = strtr(
    file_get_contents('mailContent.html'),
    array(
        '%name%' => $name,
        '%foo%' => $foo,
    )
);