Question

I’m using Eoghan’s PHP Simple Mail script to send emails. I have an application which has two file fields, one is optional. I need to attach both files, only if both are provided.

The object is formatted strangely though:

$send   = $mailer->setTo('[e-mail]', 'John Smith')
         ->setSubject('Test Message')
         ->setFrom('[e-mail]', 'Domain.com')
         ->send();

I’m not sure how to break this down into multiple lines. Right now it’s all one big run on object oriented thing that I do not comprehend.

I assume it’s something like this?

$send = $mailer->setTo($_TO_EMAIL, $_TO_NAME)
    ->setSubject($_SUBJECT)
    ->setFrom($_FROM_EMAIL, $_FROM_NAME);

// If true, send the mail
if ($my_var) $send .= $mailer->send();

EDIT: Also, what is this sort of behavior / syntax called, so I can learn it?

Answer 1

This is an example of method chaining. Each of the function calls (with the exception of send() returns a reference to the $mailer object. It’s functionally equivalent to:

$mailer->setTo('[e-mail]', 'John Smith');
$mailer->setSubject('Test Message');
$mailer->setFrom('[e-mail]', 'Domain.com');
$send = $mailer->send();

To answer your question the last should look like this:

if ($my_var) $send = $mailer->send();