I have a frontend submission form, where users can add events to a custom post type. I want to send an email to each user 1 week before this event takes place.

The emails are sent via wp_cron. The function is called with a hook. It's working correctly, but I want to add custom values to the email body.

With my code its not possible to add dynamic value to the body template of my email.

With this function below, I loop through the events post type and get the required data

function leweb_get_events_detail() {

    // Query
    global $wp_query;

    // Arguments  
    $args = array(
        'post_type' => 'events',
    );

    // Start the Query
    $query = new WP_Query( $args );

    // The Loop
    if( $query->have_posts() ) {

        $results = array();

        while( $query->have_posts() ) {

            $query->the_post();             

            $event_date_timestamp = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'event_date_timestamp', true );
            $future_timestamp = strtotime("+1 week");

            // Damit wird geprüft ob schon einmal diese Email gesendet wurde
            $notification = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'event_creator_notification' );

            if( !in_array( '1week', $notification )  && $event_date_timestamp < $future_timestamp ) {

                $event_id = get_the_ID();
                $event_email = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'event_email', true );

                $results[] = array( 
                                'event_id'      => $event_id, 
                                'event_date_timestamp' => $event_date_timestamp,
                                'event_email'     => $event_email,
                );

            }
        }

        return $results;

    }

    wp_reset_query();

}

The function below lets me fetch data from the post_meta array:

function leweb_get_values_from_post_meta( $meta = '') {

    $results = leweb_get_events_detail();

    $values = array();
    foreach( $results as $key => $value ){

        $values[] = $value[ $meta ];

    }

    return $values;
}

The function below is called from wp_cron. The email is sent to all recipients who match the above conditions and a value is added to the post meta, to prevent multiple sends of this email.

function leweb_send_mail_to_author() {


    // Alle Emails aus dem Array auslesen und für das BCC Feld im Email Header vorbereiten
    $emails = leweb_get_values_from_post_meta( 'event_email');

    if ( !empty( $emails ) ) {

        $emails = 'BCC: ' . implode( ',', $emails );

        // Email senden
        $to = '';
        $subject = 'Dein Event findet bald statt!';
        $body = file_get_contents( get_stylesheet_directory() . '/templates/email/event-creator-notification.php');
        $headers = array( 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8','From: Example <[email protected]>', $emails );

        wp_mail( $to, $subject, $body, $headers );

        // Wert in post_meta eintragen um die Mehrfachsendung zu verhindern
        $post_id = leweb_get_values_from_post_meta( 'event_id');

        foreach( $post_id as $id ) {

            add_post_meta( $id, 'event_creator_notification', '1week' );

        }

    }

}

After I coded this I figured out. it's not possible to send dynamic content in the body of my email. The only way to achieve this, is to call the wp_mail() in foreach. But this would be heavy I think? It's possible that this job sends up to hundred emails per run in the future...

So I was wondering if there is another way to do this cleanly?

I have a frontend submission form, where users can add events to a custom post type. I want to send an email to each user 1 week before this event takes place.

The emails are sent via wp_cron. The function is called with a hook. It's working correctly, but I want to add custom values to the email body.

With my code its not possible to add dynamic value to the body template of my email.

With this function below, I loop through the events post type and get the required data

function leweb_get_events_detail() {

    // Query
    global $wp_query;

    // Arguments  
    $args = array(
        'post_type' => 'events',
    );

    // Start the Query
    $query = new WP_Query( $args );

    // The Loop
    if( $query->have_posts() ) {

        $results = array();

        while( $query->have_posts() ) {

            $query->the_post();             

            $event_date_timestamp = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'event_date_timestamp', true );
            $future_timestamp = strtotime("+1 week");

            // Damit wird geprüft ob schon einmal diese Email gesendet wurde
            $notification = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'event_creator_notification' );

            if( !in_array( '1week', $notification )  && $event_date_timestamp < $future_timestamp ) {

                $event_id = get_the_ID();
                $event_email = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'event_email', true );

                $results[] = array( 
                                'event_id'      => $event_id, 
                                'event_date_timestamp' => $event_date_timestamp,
                                'event_email'     => $event_email,
                );

            }
        }

        return $results;

    }

    wp_reset_query();

}

The function below lets me fetch data from the post_meta array:

function leweb_get_values_from_post_meta( $meta = '') {

    $results = leweb_get_events_detail();

    $values = array();
    foreach( $results as $key => $value ){

        $values[] = $value[ $meta ];

    }

    return $values;
}

The function below is called from wp_cron. The email is sent to all recipients who match the above conditions and a value is added to the post meta, to prevent multiple sends of this email.

function leweb_send_mail_to_author() {


    // Alle Emails aus dem Array auslesen und für das BCC Feld im Email Header vorbereiten
    $emails = leweb_get_values_from_post_meta( 'event_email');

    if ( !empty( $emails ) ) {

        $emails = 'BCC: ' . implode( ',', $emails );

        // Email senden
        $to = '';
        $subject = 'Dein Event findet bald statt!';
        $body = file_get_contents( get_stylesheet_directory() . '/templates/email/event-creator-notification.php');
        $headers = array( 'Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8','From: Example <[email protected]>', $emails );

        wp_mail( $to, $subject, $body, $headers );

        // Wert in post_meta eintragen um die Mehrfachsendung zu verhindern
        $post_id = leweb_get_values_from_post_meta( 'event_id');

        foreach( $post_id as $id ) {

            add_post_meta( $id, 'event_creator_notification', '1week' );

        }

    }

}

After I coded this I figured out. it's not possible to send dynamic content in the body of my email. The only way to achieve this, is to call the wp_mail() in foreach. But this would be heavy I think? It's possible that this job sends up to hundred emails per run in the future...

So I was wondering if there is another way to do this cleanly?

• wp-mail

Share Improve this question edited Dec 14, 2019 at 5:12 butlerblog 5,12133 gold badges2828 silver badges4444 bronze badges asked Oct 25, 2019 at 14:17 LovinQuaQuaLovinQuaQua 7333 silver badges1818 bronze badges 1

• It appears this question is actually 2 questions, which wasn't made clear. Try to keep to 1 question per question, you can always link to this question for context. By bundling questions like this you severely reduce your chances of an answer as nobody will answer unless they can answer every single question you asked. Remember this is a Q&A site not a Discussion Forum, an answer needs to be able to concretely, canonically, and absolutely answer the question – Tom J Nowell ♦ Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 15:35

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 2

Here's your problem:

        $body = file_get_contents( get_stylesheet_directory() . '/templates/email/event-creator-notification.php');

file_get_contents literally just gets the contents of that file. There's no PHP execution. Instead, if you want to get the output of something as a variable, use output buffers, e.g.

ob_start(); // everything echo'd after this gets put in the buffer
get_template_part( 'templates/email/event-creator-notification' );
$body = ob_get_clean(); // get the buffers contents and stop output buffering