note 43223 deleted from function.mail by aidan

Note Submitter: ms at nospam dot ventersciencejtc dot org ---- I found the Warning about Windows vs. Unix somewhat misleading. From examining the source code in ext/standard/mail.c in php 4.3.7, it appears that the rule is as follows: Windows: If the INI parameter "sendmail_path" is NULL, it will hand off the mail to the server specified by the INI parameter "SMTP". But if you set "sendmail_path", it WILL use a local program for mail delivery. It runs the mail program with popen(...,"wb"). [ I didn't try this -- I figured it out by examining the code. ] Unix: You can ONLY send mail through a local delivery program. The assumption appears to be that everybody with Unix wants to run a local MTA. If that is not the case, you can either use a function like the one somebody posted below, or you can write a trivial external MTA that hands off the mail to your SMTP server. Python and perl both contain suitable SMTP mail functions. Be sure to set the value of "sendmail_path" in the INI file because ini_set() does not allow you to change this parameter.