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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-30T09:52:51+00:00

I run a small website and my users requested that I set up a

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I run a small website and my users requested that I set up a mailing list. I found a simple free script that adds e-mail addresses to a protected text file, email.txt, in CSV format:

email1@yahoo.com,email2@yahoo.com,blah,blah,blah

The script works flawlessly. However, it is a nuisance to go through the file to manually remove e-mail addresses when users cancel their list subscriptions. I need to create a simple script that removes e-mail addresses.

All I want is a simple PHP script that displays a text box so users can enter their e-mail addresses and click a “Cancel Newsletter” button. The script should search the text file, find the given e-mail address and remove it and its trailing comma.

For example, say the contents of email.txt are

john@yahoo.com,peter@yahoo.com,steve@yahoo.com

If I type “peter@yahoo.com” into the text box displayed by my desired script, I want the file to look like this:

john@yahoo.com,steve@yahoo.com

UPDATE: I tried this code:

<?php
        function showForm() {
            echo '
            <form method="post" action="">
            Email Address: <input type="text" name="email"> <br />
            <input type="submit" value="Cancel Newsletter" name="submit">
            </form>
            ';
        }

        $_POST['email']

        $to_delete = 'email';
        $file = array_flip(explode(",",file_get_contents("email.txt")));
        unset($file[$to_delete]);
        file_put_contents("email.txt",implode(",",array_flip($file));

        if(!$file_put_contents) {
            die('Error occured');
        } else {
            echo 'Your subscription has been cancelled. You will not receive any further emails from us.';
        }
    }
} else {
    showForm();
}
?>

This code doesn’t even show the form.

UPDATE 2:

Another attempt at writing this script:

<?php
    $email = $_POST["email"];
    $text = file_get_contents("email.txt");
    $oldWord = "$email";
    $newWord = "";
    $text = str_replace($oldWord , $newWord , $text);
    $fp = fopen('email.txt', 'w');
    fwrite($fp, $text);
    fclose($file);
?>

This works as far as removing the e-mail address goes, but there is no announcement (echo). I would like for it to say either “that e-mail isn’t subscribed” or “you have been removed,” based on whether the script sucessfully finds the $email in the list and deletes it.

UPDATE 3 Dec. 31, 2011:

I tried the advanced code and just got a blank page, so I went back to my version. Here is the code I have now:

<html>
    <body>
        <form method="post" action="">
            <p>Email Address: <input type="text" name="email"></p>
            <input type="submit" value="Cancel Newsletter" name="submit">
        </form>

        <?php
            $email = $_POST["email"];
            $basetext = file_get_contents("email.txt");
            $oldWord = "$email";
            $newWord = "";
            $text = str_replace($oldWord , $newWord , $basetext);
            $str1 = $basetext;
            // echo strlen($str1);
            $str2 = $text;
            // echo strlen($str2);
            $fp = fopen('email.txt', 'w');
            fwrite($fp, $text);
            if ($str1 > $str2) { // This part handles the success/fail message
                echo ("Success!");
            } else {
                echo ("Fail!");
            }
            fclose($file);
        ?>
    </body>
</html>

This works perfectly. However, it displays the “fail” message when the page is loaded, not when triggered to load, after the submit button is pressed.

I would like to keep the original code if possible, just rearranged so that it only shows “Success!” or “Fail!” once it has executed the code.

I would like the echo messages to be the last script executed on the page.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    This answer was originally appended to the question body by the OP.

    First I moved the form to /cancel.html and used <form action="/cancel_submit.html">.

    (Where I have written .html, it is just to demonstrate, as my server is configured to use no page extentions and also so that PHP is parsed on .html pages.)

    Then I put the PHP code into the page /cancel_submit.html and moved 

    if ($str1 > $str2) {
    echo ("You Have Successfully Unsubscribed From Our Newsletter....<br>You Will Not Receive Any More Emails From Us.");
} else {
    echo ("The Email Address You Specified Is Not In Our Mailing List.");
}

    to another set of PHP brackets.

    This meant that the e-mail adddress was sent via POST to the other page, which then performed the actual removal of the e-mail address from the list and then checked to see if an address been removed to provide the comfirmation message.

    I also added two commas to $oldword = "$email"; to make it $oldword = ",$email,"; so that it only finds the text entered into the e-mail box if it has a comma on either side. This addresses the case where someone submits half of an e-mail address.

    I also changed $newWord = ""; to $newWord = ","; so that if the script removes an e-mail address with commas at each side, the two e-mail addresses that were next to it will not be separated by a comma.

    Here is the code I have for both pages now:

    1. cancel.html

      <p>To cancel our Newsletter please enter your email address below....</p>
<p>
<form method="post" action="/cancel_submit.html">
<p>Email Address: <input type="text" name="email"></p>
<input type="submit" value="Cancel Newsletter" name="submit">
</form>

    2. cancel_submit.html

      <?php
    $email = $_POST["email"];
    $basetext = file_get_contents("email.txt");
    $oldWord = ",$email,";
    $newWord = ",";
    $text = str_replace($oldWord , $newWord , $basetext);
    $str1 = $basetext;
    // echo strlen($str1);
    $str2 = $text;
    // echo strlen($str2);
    $fp = fopen('email.txt', 'w');
    fwrite($fp, $text);
    fclose($file);
?>
<?php
    if ($str1 > $str2) {
        echo ("You Have Successfully Unsubscribed From Our Newsletter....<br>You Will Not Receive Any More Emails From Us.");
    } else {
        echo ("The Email Address You Specified Is Not In Our Mailing List.");
    }
?>
<p>
    <p>Please wait to be re-directed or <a href="http://the-flying-shuttle.com/"><u>CLICK HERE.</u></a>
    </p>

    EDIT:

    I made a few improvements. I added: 

    $email = strtolower($email);

    to both the e-mail add script and the e-mail remove script. This converted all characters entered into either form to lowercase; previously, it wouldnt remove e-mails typed in a different case than the big list had.

    This messed up the confirmation message command, so I changed it to

    if (str_replace($oldWord , $newWord , $basetext)) {
    echo ("You Have Successfully Unsubscribed From Our Newsletter....<br>You Will Not Receive Any More Emails From Us.");
} else {
    echo ("The Email Address You Specified Is Not In Our Mailing List.");
}
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