What are the benefits of using mailer classes over raw mail() function in PHP for handling email sending?
Using mailer classes over the raw mail() function in PHP for handling email sending provides several benefits such as easier configuration, better error handling, support for attachments, HTML emails, and SMTP authentication. Mailer classes like PHPMailer or Swift Mailer offer more advanced features and are generally more reliable for sending emails.
// Example using PHPMailer to send an email
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;
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';
$mail->send();
echo 'Email sent successfully';
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo 'Email could not be sent. Mailer Error: ' . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}