Send MMS Message from PHP Script

Posted by on Jul 15, 2017 in Support Blog

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Note: For additional APIs for sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages, please see our Developer APIs for SMS + MMS page.

Back in 2003, we posted an example PHP script for sending MMS via NowSMS on our discussion board at https://nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/1113.html.

While this script has worked well over the years, it has a serious limitation in that it does not support SSL/TLS. Version 2 of this script adds support for SSL/TLS.

If you are migrating from the version 1 script, SSL/TLS requires a slight change in parameters. The first two parameters for the old version were host name or IP, followed by the port number. In the new version, instead these are combined into a single parameter, which is the URL of the NowSMS server (e.g., http://127.0.0.1:8800 or https://sample.smshosts.com/).

The Version 2 script can be downloaded at the following link: https://nowsms.com/download/sendmms-php.txt.

The sendmms.php script is considerably more complex than the sendsms.php script. The reason for this increased complexity is because an MMS message is more complex than an SMS message.

The first part of sendmms.php consists of PHP functions that you will call in your PHP script … namely MmsInit, MmsAddField, MmsAddFile and MmsSend. Include these functions in your PHP script “as is” without editing them.

After these functions, sendmms.php contains a simple example showing how to use these functions to send an MMS message through a NowSMS server.

1.) Begin by using MmsInit to initialise the MMS message structure.

$mmsMessage = MmsInit();

2.) Add header fields and attributes desired for your MMS message, calling the MmsAddField fuction.

$mmsMessage = MmsAddField ($mmsMessage, "PhoneNumber", "+447777777777");

$mmsMessage = MmsAddField ($mmsMessage, "MMSFrom", "+447777777777");

$mmsMessage = MmsAddField ($mmsMessage, "MMSSubject", "Subject of Message");

$mmsMessage = MmsAddField ($mmsMessage, "MMSText", "Hello!");

The “PhoneNumber” field specifies the recipient(s) for the MMS message. This can be a comma delimited list of phone numbers, or it can be the name of a NowSMS distribution list.

The “MMSFrom” field specfies the sender of the MMS message. Normally, this would be a phone number, short code or e-mail address. (If the message is sent via a modem, this will be ignored, but if you have multiple modems, this field can be used to select a particular modem.)

The “MMSSubject” field specifies the subject of the MMS message, and is optional.

The “MMSText” field to specifies some text to be included in the MMS message, and is also optional. Text can also be included in an MMS message as a text file reference.

3.) Specify the files (usually images) to include in the MMS message. Files can be added using a local directory path or remote URL. For a local directory path, use MmsAddFile.

The last parameter of MmsAddFile is the MIME content type (e.g., “image/gif”, “image/jpeg”, “image/png”, “text/plain” or “application/smil”). However, note that current versions of NowSMS ignore the MIME content type when messages are submitted via the interface used by this PHP script. Instead, NowSMS uses the file extension to determine the content type (e.g., “.gif”, “.jpg”, “.png”, “.txt”, “.smil”.

$mmsMessage = MmsAddFile ($mmsMessage, "f:/temp/file.gif", "image/gif");

An MMS message can contain one or more of these file objects.

When using MmsAddFile, the files referenced in the PHP script must be local files, residing on the same server as the PHP script.

To include a file (image) by URL reference, instead of a local file, use MmsAddField with field name MMSFile:

$mmsMessage = MmsAddField ($mmsMessage, "MMSFile", "https://nowsms.com/nowsmsicon.png");

4.) Use MmsSend to submit the MMS message to your NowSMS Server.

$nowsmsHostURL  = "https://sample.smshosts.com";    // URL of NowSMS Server

$nowsmsUsername = "username";                       // "SMS Users" account name 

$nowsmsPassword = "password";                       // "SMS Users" account password

 

$x = MmsSend ($nowsmsHostURL, $nowsmsUsername, $nowsmsPassword, $mmsMessage);

The MmsAddField function can be used to specify any NowSMS URL parameter that is valid for sending an MMS message.

The complete Version 2 script can be downloaded at the following link: https://nowsms.com/download/sendmms-php.txt.

For example … here is an incomplete list of additional parameter fields that can be specfied using the MmsAddField function.

“MMSDeliveryReport” – “Delivery Report” specifies whether or not a delivery report is requested for the message. Set to “Yes” to request a delivery report. Note that any delivery report would be directed back to the phone number or e-mail address specified in the “MMSFrom” address.

“MMSReadReport” – “Read Report” specifies whether or not a read receipt is requested for the message. Note that the receiving client may choose not to send a read receipt. Any read receipt report would be directed back to the phone number or e-mail address specified in the “MMSFrom” address.

“MMSPriority” – “Priority” is a user defined priority to be associated with the message. Generally, any priority definition associated with the message is ignored by the underlying transport, but the receiving client may decide to display messages differently based upon this priority setting.

“MMSMessageClass” – “Message Class” is an attribute defined in the MMS specifications. “Personal” is the message type that is used for standard user-to-user communications. Other defined message classes that are supported by this parameter include: “Informational” and “Advertisement”.

“MMSWAPPush” – Set to “Yes” to indicate that the message being sent should be sent as an “Multimedia WAP Push” message instead of as an MMS message.

It is also possible to specify forward locking and DRM constraints to be applied against the content of the MMS message. Forward locking and DRM constraints apply to non-text parts of the MMS message (i.e., in a forward locked message, text could still be forwarded, but images or video could not). Please note that not all devices support forward locking and DRM constraints, therefore use these parameter settings only after testing thoroughly with mobile phones used by your message recipients.

“MMSForwardLock” – Forward locking is the most basic level of DRM (Digital Rights Management). When “Forward Lock” is set to “Yes”, this indicates that the receiving device should not allow any non-text objects in the message to be forwarded off of the device. The device may allow the user to extract pictures, videos or sounds from the message and save them on the phone. However, any such objects remain forward locked, such that they cannot be forwarded to another user or transferred to another device. (IMPORTANT NOTE: NOT ALL DEVICES SUPPORT FORWARD LOCK, WHEN NOT SUPPORTED THE CONTENT WILL APPEAR AS GARBAGE OR MAY BE REJECTED BY THE OPERATOR MMSC.)

“DRMRestrict” – Beyond forward locking, More advanced DRM (Digital Rights Management) restrictions can be applied to limit the number of times that the user can access an object, or start and end dates can be specified to limit how long the user can access an object.
These advanced DRM restrictions can be applied by setting “DRMRestrict” to “Yes”. When this setting is enabled, forward lock is also implied, and the value of the “MMSForwardLock” setting is ignored. (IMPORTANT NOTE: NOT ALL DEVICES SUPPORT DRM RESTRICTIONS, WHEN NOT SUPPORTED THE CONTENT WILL APPEAR AS GARBAGE OR MAY BE REJECTED BY THE OPERATOR MMSC.)

“DRMRestrictTextXML”“Yes” specifies that the rights object should be encoded in text XML format. “No” specfies that the rights object should be encoded in binary XML format. The default is “No”.

When DRM Restrictions are specfied, it is generally necessary to specify one or more DRM Permissions and one or more DRM Constraints regarding the MMS message content.

DRM Permissions specify what types of access are allowed against the objects in a message that is protected with DRM.

For example, an audio or video object requires “Play” permission before the user can access it. An image requires “Display” permission before the user can access it, and it requires “Print” permission if the user is to be allowed to print the image to a printer , perhaps over Bluetooth. An application requires “Execute” permission before the user can make use of the application. In all cases, the forward locking is assumed, so that the user is not allowed to forward or transfer the object from the device.

If you are sending multiple types of objects in the MMS message, specify all permissions that are required for the different types of objects that are being sent.

“DRMPermissionPlay” – Set to “Yes” to enable DRM “Play” Permission.

“DRMPermissionDisplay” – Set to “Yes” to enable DRM “Display” Permission.

“DRMPermissionExecute” – Set to “Yes” to enable DRM “Execute” Permission.

“DRMPermissionPrint” – Set to “Yes” to enable DRM “Print” Permission.

DRM Constraints specify constraints with regard to how long a DRM protected object object should remain accessible to the user.

“DRMConstraintCount” – “# of Accesses (count)” specifies the the user can only access the DRM protected object this number of times before access is no longer allowed.

“DRMConstraintStart” – “Start Date (yyyy-mm-dd)” specifies that the user will not be allowed to access the DRM protected object until on or after the specified date. (Note that you must specify the date in yyyy-mm-dd format, e.g., 2008-12-24.)

“DRMConstraintEnd” – “End Date (yyyy-mm-dd)” specifies that the user will not be allowed to access the DRM protected object after the specified date. (Note that you must specify the date in yyyy-mm-dd format, e.g., 2008-02-24.)

“DRMConstraintInterval” – “# of Days (interval)” specifies that the user will be allowed to access the DRM protected object for this number of days after initial receipt of the object. The user can either enter a number of days here, or they can enter any valid value defined for the “” element in the OMA DRM Rights Expression Language specification. For example, P2Y10M15DT10H30M20S represents a duration of 2 years, 10 months, 15 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes and 20 seconds.

For comments and further discussion, please click here to visit the NowSMS Technical Forums (Discussion Board)...

One Response to “Send MMS Message from PHP Script”

  1. Note: Some environments may experience a problem where the last object of an MMS message is missing or truncated when sending through this PHP script.

    This can happen if mbstring.func_overload is defined in your PHP configuration.

    In order of this script to function correctly in those environments, it is necessary to modify the script to use the mb_strlen function instead of strlen.

    A modified version of the script that uses mb_strlen can be found at https://nowsms.com/download/sendmms2-php.txt.