Re: PHP Manual

On Jun 14, 2010, at 2:19 PM, Alain Renaud wrote: > Hi! > > I want to point out an idiotism in your documentation. For a beginner in PHP, this can (will) > be totally confusing: > > > On page 1586 of the PHP Manual (Published 03-06-2003), it is first said: A lot of updates and changes have taken place since 2003, so I highly suggest you read a newer version of the PHP Manual. > 'There is no installation needed to use these functions; they are part of the PHP > core.' > > and latter on it is said: > > 'Where the sendmail program can be found...' > > > Do you UNDERSTAND the absolute contradiction between these 2 statements. In the first one, you > claim that a web site operating solely with PHP CAN send emails regardless of anything else. > > In the second statement, you defeat the first statement by saying that in fact it > CAN'T... I agree, but we don't intentionally claim that "PHP can send emails regardless of anything else." It's attempting to say that you don't need to install a foo_mail or mail_bar extensions, but rather, these exist in PHP core. The installation requirements section will hopefully clear it up: - http://php.net/mail.requirements However, the contradiction comes into play when compared to the documentation (in the requirements section) that sendmail is required for these functions to exist, and for that I urge you to file a bug report. - http://bugs.php.net/ The wording is generic in nature (as an entity inserted into many other sections) but ext/mail is a unique. I think it's a little odd that mail() can be undefined due to compile time circumstances but it is what it is. Thank you for helping evaluate this topic. Regards, Philip