On Jun 14, 2010, at 2:19 PM, Alain Renaud wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> I want to point out an idiotism in your documentation. For a beginner in PHP, 
> this can (will) be totally confusing:
> 
> 
> On page 1586 of the PHP Manual (Published 03-06-2003), it is first said:


A lot of updates and changes have taken place since 2003, so I highly suggest 
you read a newer version of the PHP Manual.


> 'There is no installation needed to use these functions; they are part of the 
> PHP core.'
> 
> and latter on it is said:
> 
> 'Where the sendmail program can be found...'
> 
> 
> Do you UNDERSTAND the absolute contradiction between these 2 statements. In 
> the first one, you claim that a web site operating solely with PHP CAN send 
> emails regardless of anything else.
> 
>  In the second statement, you defeat the first statement by saying that in 
> fact it CAN'T...

I agree, but we don't intentionally claim that "PHP can send emails regardless 
of anything else."  It's attempting to say that you don't need to install a 
foo_mail or mail_bar extensions, but rather, these exist in PHP core. The 
installation requirements section will hopefully clear it up:

 - http://php.net/mail.requirements

However, the contradiction comes into play when compared to the documentation 
(in the requirements section) that sendmail is required for these functions to 
exist, and for that I urge you to file a bug report.

 - http://bugs.php.net/

The wording is generic in nature (as an entity inserted into many other 
sections) but ext/mail is a unique. I think it's a little odd that mail() can 
be undefined due to compile time circumstances but it is what it is. Thank you 
for helping evaluate this topic.

Regards,
Philip

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