cgi form mail example

The form mail script collects the data submitted in a form, (optionally) formats it, and sends it to one or more email addresses. For more information on form mail scripts and a list of free form mail scripts see Some form mail script examples.

This page explains the usage of Perl based, NMS FormMail.

# Using the form mail script

This guide takes you step by step through creating a form and getting the form submissions by email.

# Step 1: Download the form mail script

Download the script from http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/scripts.shtml Download the TFMail package from the page and unzip it.

# Step 2: Modify the script

Now you have to modify the script that you had downloaded in step 1. Open the TFMail.pl in a text editor and update the script. Instead of 'johnd' it will be your user name. Depending on your hosting account, the actual path can vary.

Note: Important! do not put the configuration files in a location that could be accessed from the web.

# Step 3: Update the configuration file

open the default.trc file (from the downloaded files in step 1) save it as say, feedback.trc

Edit feedback.trc and change recipient to your email address.

# Step 4: Upload the files

  • Login to your web server through FTP.

  • Create a folder tfmail in the base folder Note: Important! do not put the configuration files in a location that could be accessed from the web.- Upload the following files to the tfmail folder

    • MIME_Lite.pm
    • NMSCharset.pm
    • NMStreq.pm
    • email.trt
    • missing.trt
    • spage.trt
    • feedback.trc (created in step 3)

    • Upload the TFmail.pl to the cgi-bin folder. Update the file permissions of TFmail.pl to 755

Step 5: Create the form

Use an HTML editor to create the form

The code for a sample form is given below:

 <form name='feedback' method='POST' action='/cgi-bin/TFmail.pl' accept-charset='UTF-8'> <input type='hidden' name='_config' value='feedback' /> Name: <br> <input type='text' name='Name' size='20'/><br> Email: <br> <input type='text' name='Email' size='20'/><br> Comments: <br> <textarea name='Comments' cols='50' rows='8'></textarea><br> <br> <input type='submit' name='Submit' value='Submit'/> </form>

Upload the page containing the form also to the web server

Step 6: Test the form!

Open the form page and submit some sample data.

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