Chapter 3. Mailing List

E-mail is one of the oldest and most prolific members of the Internet family. In fact, some estimates show over 60 billion e-mail messages are sent every day . . . an estimate that I suspect is somewhat on the conservative side! E-mail is used by business executives to schedule meetings and close deals, by grandparents to share digital photos of their grandchildren, and by students to exchange class notes and homework assignments. There's no denying people have found e-mail to be a great way to exchange ideas and information regardless of whatever the exact number is.

In this chapter you'll build an e-mail–driven discussion list powered by PHP. The finished project is a basic implementation that you can tailor to your specific needs. Perhaps more importantly, you will come away with reusable code to connect to a POP3 server and an understanding of how PHP scripts can be run outside of the realm of web pages.