Activating users using email in php

[KevinKiambe]

Please help me to get a php code that activates users upon registration by sending the activation codes to their specified emails.

What have you tried?

$host  = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$host_upper = strtoupper($host);
$login_path = @ereg_replace('admin','',dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']));
$path   = rtrim($login_path, '/\\');

$message = 
"Thank you for registering with us. Your account has been activated...

*****LOGIN LINK*****\n
http://$host$path/login.php

Thank You

Administrator
$host_upper
______________________________________________________
THIS IS AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE. 
***DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL****
";

	@mail($to_email, "User Activation", $message,
    "From: \"Member Registration\" <auto-reply@$host>\r\n" .
     "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion());


 echo "Active";


}

[helimeef]

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you sending an activation code after they fill out a registration form? What I would do is this:

1. Generate a random number for each user and store it in a database.
2. Send them a hash of this random number in your email (retrieve it from the database, then sha1() or md5() it).
3. When they click on the link/enter the activation code, retrieve the number from the database, hash it, and compare it to the hash they have. If they match, your user is legitimate.

Example:

function registerUser() {[INDENT]//... whatever code you already have here[/INDENT][INDENT]$activationCode = rand();[/INDENT][INDENT]//... insert $activationCode into the database alongside other user info[/INDENT]
}

//... meanwhile, the user clicks on a link in the email with the hash in a GET variable

$submittedHash = $_GET['ac'];

$storedCode = /* Put whatever code here to retrieve the number you stored in the database earlier */;

if ($submittedHash == md5($storedCode)) [INDENT]loginSuccessful($submittedHash); // or whatever[/INDENT]

[helimeef]

You can also check out this tutorial for even more comprehensive help.