Variable value lost in mailto: bcc

[rmt]

The following script retrieves emails from a MYSQL database. I’m taking the group of emails, setting them in a variable, and sending them using HTML’s mailto: function. The href link works great, but I’d prefer to use a button. When I bring the variable into the form action, it is empty… but only in the BCC section. I tried putting the variable directly after the mailto: as the primary recipient and it was not empty. Why is it empty in the BCC section of the form?

Here is the relevant code:

$q = "SELECT email FROM volunteers WHERE $column ='y'";
$r = @mysqli_query ($dbc, $q);
$group = array();
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($r, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {
$group[] = $row['email'];
}
$groupemail = implode(', ', $group);

echo '<form action="mailto:email@place.org?bcc=' . $groupemail . '">
<input type="submit" value="Email All">
</form>';
echo '<a href="mailto:email@place.org?bcc=' . $groupemail . '">Email All</a>';

mysqli_free_result ($r);

[megazoid]

Do you see that value in page source from browser?

[felgall]

@rmt

<form action="mailto:

This is not valid. Modern and even many not so modern browsers will disregard the form completely and try to open an attached email program - assuming the browser is set up with one defined.

You need to either use an <a> tag to attach the mailto: or use a form2mail script with the form.

[SpacePhoenix]

The use of @ to suppress errors is always a bad idea, you should be using exceptions to handle any errors thrown back by MySQL. http://php.net/manual/en/class.mysqli-sql-exception.php

For a development version of a site you should display the errors but for a live site you should log any errors to a log

[rmt]

Thank you. I wanted to use the form just for aesthetic purposes, but realistically only two or three people will ever see or use this page. An <a> tag will do.