Having used the Zend Framework on a couple of projects and spent a lot of time reading the documentation I discovered the use of method chaining. This post looks at how to use method chaining in PHP.

His examples include a comparison between a method-chained Zend_Mail example and a non-chained method with each line augmenting the same object over and over. He also includes the simple-as-pie method that lets you use chaining in your own applications - returning the object itself.

Email plays a crucial role in website development, whether you'd like to confirm a new registrant's email address, recover a lost password, or provide prospective clients with a convenient means to contact you. [...] In this tutorial, I'll introduce you to several solutions for sending email using PHP, including PHP's native mail() function, PEAR's Mail package, and the Zend Framework.

He starts with some of the fundamentals of mail - the difference between POP3 and SMTP, Sendmail, etc - before moving on to an example of the mail function's usage. He does the same with the PEAR Mail package and the Zend_Mail component of the Zend Framework.

Using PHP's built in function (aptly named mail() ) is relatively straightforward - until you need slightly more advanced features, such as adding and encoding email headers or sending multiple mails efficiently. Fortunately, the Zend Framework comes with a very capable mail component called Zend_Mail.

He shows how to send a simple email, do something a bit more complex with a custom SMTP server, read messages from a remote POP3 email box and how to attach a binary file/message.

I've recently switched from Swift Mailer to Zend_Mail and, to be honest, I'm loving it. Finally someone developed a lightweight, powerful and easy to use Mail component!

He includes an example or two showing a basic mailer script, one that uses a fluent interface, one sending an HTML email and two that show how to use a remote SMTP server.