What are the advantages of using a dedicated mailer class like PHP-mailer or swiftmailer over the built-in mail() function in PHP for sending emails?

Using a dedicated mailer class like PHP-mailer or Swiftmailer offers several advantages over the built-in mail() function in PHP. These libraries provide a more robust and feature-rich solution for sending emails, including support for attachments, HTML emails, SMTP authentication, and better error handling. They also offer better security features to prevent common email vulnerabilities.

// Example using PHP-Mailer
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer(true);

try {
    $mail->isSMTP();
    $mail->Host = 'smtp.example.com';
    $mail->SMTPAuth = true;
    $mail->Username = 'your@example.com';
    $mail->Password = 'your_password';
    $mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
    $mail->Port = 587;

    $mail->setFrom('from@example.com', 'Your Name');
    $mail->addAddress('recipient@example.com', 'Recipient Name');
    $mail->isHTML(true);
    $mail->Subject = 'Subject';
    $mail->Body = 'Email body content';

    $mail->send();
    echo 'Email sent successfully';
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo 'Message could not be sent. Mailer Error: ', $mail->ErrorInfo;
}