Email Address Confirmation PHP Tutorial

If you want that users sign up to join your website you may want to verify their email address by sending confirmation link to their email address. You'll learn how to do this in this tutorial.

Overview

Following files will be use in this process of email confirmation.

PHP files
1. signup.php
2. signup_ac.php
3. confirmation.php
4. config.php

DB files
1. members_db_temp
2. reg_members

Process
1. When users will be sign up. Random a set of confirmation code will be generate.
2. Keep all confirmation code and informations in table "members_db_temp". This table will be temporary, we have to move this informations to table "reg_members" after email address has been verified.
3. After sucessfully inserted data into table "temp_membes_db", send confirmation link to email that users used to sign up, if email will be invalid they will not receive our email.
4. They have to click on confirmation link to activate their account. (move data from table "temp_member_db" to table "reg_members" and delete data from table "members_db_temp" in this step)

Step1:

Create table "members_db_temp" and table "reg_members"

Table "members_db_temp"
{code type=codetype}
CREATE TABLE `members_db_temp` (
`confirm_code` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
`name` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
`email` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
`password` varchar(15) NOT NULL default '',
`country` varchar(65) NOT NULL default ''
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

{/code}

Table "reg_members"
{code type=codetype}
CREATE TABLE `reg_members` (
`id` int(4) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`name` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
`email` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
`password` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
`country` varchar(65) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

{/code}

Step2:

Create sign up form (signup.php)

{code type=codetype}

<table width="350" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td><form name="form1" method="post" action="signup_ac.php">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><strong>Sign up</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="76">Name</td>
<td width="3">:</td>
<td width="305"><input name="name" type="text" id="name" size="30"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>E-mail</td>
<td>:</td>
<td><input name="email" type="text" id="email" size="30"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>password</td>
<td>:</td>
<td><input name="password" type="password" id="password" size="30"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Country</td>
<td>:</td>
<td><input name="country" type="text" id="country" size="30"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit"> &nbsp;
<input type="reset" name="Reset" value="Reset"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form></td>
</tr>
</table>

{/code}

Step3:

Insert data into database (signup_ac.php)

In this step
1. Random confirmation code
2. Insert data and confirmation code into database
3. Send email to user with confirmation link

After successfully inserted data into database send confirmation link to Dev's email "http://www.tutorialspalace.com/confirmation.php?passkey=$confirm_code"

|---|--------------------- code --------------------|---|

{code type=codetype}

<?
include('config.php');

// table name
$tbl_name=members_db_temp;

// Random confirmation code
$confirm_code=md5(uniqid(rand()));

// values sent from form
$name=$_POST['name'];
$email=$_POST['email'];
$country=$_POST['country'];

// Insert data into database
$sql="INSERT INTO $tbl_name(confirm_code, name, email, password, country)VALUES('$confirm_code', '$name', '$email', '$password', '$country')";
$result=mysql_query($sql);

// if suceesfully inserted data into database, send confirmation link to email
if($result){

{/code}

// ---------------- SEND MAIL FORM ----------------

{code type=codetype}

// send e-mail to ...
$to=$email;

// Your subject
$subject="Your confirmation link here";

// From
$header="from: your name <your email>";

// Your message
$message="Your Comfirmation link \r\n";
$message.="Click on this link to activate your account \r\n";
$message.="http://www.yourweb.com/confirmation.php?passkey=$confirm_code";

// send email
$sentmail = mail($to,$subject,$message,$header);

}

// if not found
else {
echo "Not found your email in our database";
}

// if your email succesfully sent
if($sentmail){
echo "Your Confirmation link Has Been Sent To Your Email Address.";
}
else {
echo "Cannot send Confirmation link to your e-mail address";
}

?>

{/code}

Step4:

confirmation.php

When jack open his email he'll see this message and link to file "confirmation.php" including passkey in url.

In this step
1. Check passkey
2. If found passkey in database, move all data in that row from table "members_db_temp" to table "reg_members"
3. Delete passkey from table "members_db_temp"

|---|--------------------- code --------------------|---|

{code type=codetype}

<?
include('config.php');

// Passkey that got from link
$passkey=$_GET['passkey'];

$tbl_name1="members_db_temp";

// Retrieve data from table where row that match this passkey
$sql1="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name1 WHERE confirm_code ='$passkey'";
$result1=mysql_query($sql1);

// If successfully queried
if($result1){

// Count how many row has this passkey
$count=mysql_num_rows($result1);

// if found this passkey in our database, retrieve data from table "members_db_temp"
if($count==1){

$rows=mysql_fetch_array($result1);
$name=$rows['name'];
$email=$rows['email'];
$password=$rows['password'];
$country=$rows['country'];

$tbl_name2="reg_members";

// Insert data that retrieves from "members_db_temp" into table "reg_members"
$sql2="INSERT INTO $tbl_name2(name, email, password, country)VALUES('$name', '$email', '$password', '$country')";
$result2=mysql_query($sql2);
}

// if not found passkey, display message "Wrong Confirmation code"
else {
echo "Wrong Confirmation code";
}

// if successfully moved data from table"members_db_temp" to table "reg_members" displays message "Your account has been activated" and don't forget to delete confirmation code from table "members_db_temp"
if($result2){

echo "Your account has been activated";

// Delete information of this user from table "members_db_temp" that has this passkey
$sql3="DELETE FROM $tbl_name1 WHERE confirm_code = '$passkey'";
$result3=mysql_query($sql3);

}

}
?>

{/code}

Step5:

config.php - config your database

{code type=codetype}

<?

$host="localhost"; // Host name
$username=""; // Mysql username
$password=""; // Mysql password
$db_name=""; // Database name


//Connect to server and select database.
mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect to server");
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");

?>

{/code}