get the $email string

Hi, i made a page to display some user details and then clicking on the user name it goes to another page to send a mail via mail() function. here is the line of the first page <td width="20%" align="center"><b><font face="Arial" size="1" color="#808080"><a href="mail_active.php?email=$email"><? echo $row->name; ?></a></font></b></td> when click on user name, it goes to the mail_active.php?email=xxx@xxx.com on the mail_active.php page, how do I get the e-mail address to send? I mean, the mail function is mail ("$to","$subject","$message","From: $sender"); How can I take the $to string to be xxx@xxx.com? Miguel