A lot of applications nowadays are sms-enabled. In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to integrate
sms-sending capability into your applications, some of the common uses of sms in applications include:
sending a custom message to a user after signing up, or after making a purchase on an ecommerce site,
automatic birthday greetings and of course the familiar bank transaction alerts("Godwin",lol), there could be
countless other creative uses, the idea is the same as we are going to see.

[size=13pt]What you need[/size]

Now, to sms-enable your application, you need access to an sms gateway api...and the documentation.
An example of such is the one provided by Supertext:

http://www.supertextng.com/api.php?username=[username]&password=[password]&destination=[destination]&message=[message]&sender=[sender]

This is a RESTful HTTP API, you can consume it in whatever language you use.
Here, we are going to be speaking PHP, but the principle is the same for all languages.

Most sms api's are in this form. If you type that api url in a browser, something happens, an sms gets
sent if everything is rigth, a response is returned in any case.

Now, the question to ask is how do we open that url programatically i.e within an application.
In the answer to that question lies the crux of the matter.

[size=13pt]Filesystem functions and cURL to the Rescue[/size]

The api url can be viewed as a resource or as a file with some content, when you open it, some textual
content is returned as a response, that means we can use filesystem functions like file(), fopen(),
file_get_contents() to programatically open the api url and achieve what we want.

The cURL library can also be used to achieve the same end, and this seems to be what is often used in practice,
but here we are going to take an illustrative example using the file() function.

[size=13pt]An Example[/size]

Let's say you want to send an sms automatically to users after they sign up for your application.
The signup form essentially consists of the Name(name), Email Address(email), Password(password), and GSM Number(gsm) fields.
You already have access to an sms gateway api.
To make things neat, let's write a standalone function for sending sms that we can always call to get the job done.

Here we go...

<?php
function sendsms($to,$from,$message) // I believe the variables are self-explanatory
{
$message = urlencode("$message";
$from = urlencode("$from";
$api_username = "blablabla";
$api_password = "shoGoLogoBanGosHe";
// feed the parameters into the api and open url with the file() function
file("http://www.supertextng.com/api.php?username=$api_username&password=$api_password&destination=$to&message=$message&sender=$from" ;
}
?>

We have to urlencode() the message to take care of spaces between words,
this is necessary when sending via url, otherwise only the first word gets sent.

Let's save that in a file named myfunctions.php

This is a simplistic function, it assumes a successful send operation as we didn't test
if the sms was sent or not based on the api response. Api responses differ, we have to follow
the documentation of the particular api we are using, I might write another sendsms funtion that takes this into
account later based on the Supertext api.

Now, to the signup code.

<?php

if(isset($_POST['signup']))
{

// please do all your security and validation stuff

include('myfunctions.php');

$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$password = $_POST['password'];
$gsm = $_POST['gsm'];

if(save_to_db($name,$email,$password,$gsm))
{
echo "<div class='success'>Sign up successful, you will get an alert shortly.</div>";
// set the sms message
$message = "Hello $name, thank you for registering on our site.";
$sender_id = "Our Site"; // set the sender id
// now call the sendsms function to send message to the user
sendsms($gsm,$sender_id,$message);
}
}

?>

That's it folks, 'hope it's clear enough. The save_to_db() function is
the function that saves the user details to your database, we assume it's
included in the myfunctions.php file, we are not concerned with it's
details here.

Comments are welcome.

Want to learn PHP programming in greater details? Click the link below:

PHP training.


**We need a real code highlighter here. How does one prevent "bracket semicolon from turning to a smiley?

bakenda:
A lot of applications nowadays are sms-enabled. In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to integrate
sms-sending capability into your applications, some of the common uses of sms in applications include:
sending a custom message to a user after signing up, or after making a purchase on an ecommerce site,
automatic birthday greetings and of course the familiar bank transaction alerts("Godwin",lol), there could be
countless other creative uses, the idea is the same as we are going to see.

[size=13pt]What you need[/size]

Now, to sms-enable your application, you need access to an sms gateway api...and the documentation.
An example of such is the one provided by Supertext:

[/b]

This is a RESTful HTTP API, you can consume it in whatever language you use.
Here, we are going to be speaking PHP, but the principle is the same for all languages.

Most sms api's are in this form. If you type that api url in a browser, something happens, an sms gets
sent if everything is rigth, a response is returned in any case.

Now, the question to ask is how do we open that url programatically i.e within an application.
In the answer to that question lies the crux of the matter.

[b][size=13pt]Filesystem functions and cURL to the Rescue[/size]

The api url can be viewed as a resource or as a file with some content, when you open it, some textual
content is returned as a response, that means we can use filesystem functions like file(), fopen(),
file_get_contents() to programatically open the api url and achieve what we want.

The cURL library can also be used to achieve the same end, and this seems to be what is often used in practice,
but here we are going to take an illustrative example using the file() function.

[size=13pt]An Example[/size]

Let's say you want to send an sms automatically to users after they sign up for your application.
The signup form essentially consists of the Name(name), Email Address(email), Password(password), and GSM Number(gsm) fields.
You already have access to an sms gateway api.
To make things neat, let's write a standalone function for sending sms that we can always call to get the job done.

Here we go...

[b][/b]

nice tutorial bro. really appreciate it. but please in case its an asp application. how can i go about it using my php SMS api? thanks in advance

nnamdiosu:

nice tutorial bro. really appreciate it. but please in case its an asp application. how can i go about it using my php SMS api? thanks in advance

Thank you. Well, the api is not a php api, it is not tied to any particular
language, I think what you need to do is to look for the asp equivalents
of those file system functions and use them as specified.

bakenda:
We have to urlencode() the message to take care of spaces between words,
this is necessary when sending via url, otherwise only the first word gets sent.

Let's save that in a file named myfunctions.php

This is a simplistic function, it assumes a successful send operation as we didn't test
if the sms was sent or not based on the api response. Api responses differ, we have to follow
the documentation of the particular api we are using, I might write another sendsms funtion that takes this into
account later based on the Supertext api.

Now, to the signup code.




That's it folks, 'hope it's clear enough. The save_to_db() function is
the function that saves the user details to your database, we assume it's
included in the myfunctions.php file, we are not concerned with it's
details here.

Comments are welcome.

Want to learn PHP programming in greater details? Click the link below:

PHP training.


**We need a real code highlighter here. How does one prevent "bracket semicolon from turning to a smiley?

bro no vex abeg. how you take get this method...

if(save_to_db($name,$email,$password,$gsm))

i cant see any where you declared it. thanks

oh dont mind me. just saw what it stands for (submitting to the db). ive tried and it worked for me. thanks so much bro.

Please i need to learn more about this, its not working for me.

boro43:
Please i need to learn more about this, its not working for me.

Really.What exactly is the chalenge?