What is mail function in php

In PHP, the mail() function is a built-in function that allows you to send an email message from your PHP script to a recipient's email address. It is a simple way to send emails programmatically from your PHP application.

The mail() function takes three required parameters:

1. to: The recipient's email address.
2. subject: The subject line of the email.
3. message: The body of the email message.

Optional parameters include:

4. headers: A string of additional headers to include in the email, such as "From:", "Reply-To:", and "CC:".
5. parameters: An array of additional parameters to include in the email, such as attachments.

Here is the basic syntax of the mail() function:

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers = '', $parameters = '');

For example:

$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Hello from PHP!';
$message = 'This is a test email sent from PHP.';

mail($to, $subject, $message);

This code would send an email to [email protected] with the subject "Hello from PHP!" and the body "This is a test email sent from PHP.".

You can also use the mail() function to send emails with attachments by passing an array of attachments as the $parameters parameter. For example:

$to = '[email protected]';
$subject = 'Hello from PHP!';
$message = 'This is a test email sent from PHP.';

$attachments = array('attachment1.txt', 'attachment2.pdf');

mail($to, $subject, $message, '', array('attachment' => $attachments));

This code would send an email to [email protected] with the subject "Hello from PHP!" and the body "This is a test email sent from PHP.", and attach two files, attachment1.txt and attachment2.pdf, to the email.

Note that the mail() function is a simple way to send emails, but it has some limitations. For example, it does not support sending emails with HTML content, and it does not provide any feedback on whether the email was successfully delivered. For more advanced email sending capabilities, you may want to consider using a third-party email library or service.