Recieving text messages

[infestor1]

Hi,

I recently became interested in a system that I have seen all over. How do people make it so if you text X to the number Y, then you vote for someone on a TV show or you subscribe to a service or something?

Is this possible with PHP, so if someone texts a certain string, I add an entry to the database, and if someone texts another certain string, I add another entry in a different table, so I can count how many people are doing it?

Thanks
Andrew

[Bob]

Apr 9, 2010 18:25:02 GMT -8 infestor1 said:

Hi,

I recently became interested in a system that I have seen all over. How do people make it so if you text X to the number Y, then you vote for someone on a TV show or you subscribe to a service or something?

Is this possible with PHP, so if someone texts a certain string, I add an entry to the database, and if someone texts another certain string, I add another entry in a different table, so I can count how many people are doing it?

Thanks
Andrew

Most providers allow their clients to send SMS text messages to email addresses instead of a phone number. So the easiest way would be to just set up an email address and write a script that monitors all incoming mail.

Anything more complicated than that and you're going to have to look to your cell provider. Many allow you to route all incoming SMS to a specified gateway (your PHP script, for example) using a specified format. Most commonly this will be HTTP GET or XML over HTTP. Either way you'll need to look to your provider for more details.

Also understand that you may end up having to either forfeit SMS text messages to your cell entirely to support this or set up another line dedicated to this service so that you don't interfere with your number.

[iDunk]

Bobby is definitely on the right track. You can sign up for a SMS Gateway account with various providers online. Many of which provide an API for sending and receiving messages. The way I've done it is to setup an email account that is forwarded/piped ( | ) to an executable script on the server. That script will then check the account, and parse any emails contained in it, and act accordingly.

-iDunk

[Ryan]

Apr 9, 2010 23:18:00 GMT -8 iDunk said:

Bobby is definitely on the right track. You can sign up for a SMS Gateway account with various providers online. Many of which provide an API for sending and receiving messages. The way I've done it is to setup an email account that is forwarded/piped ( | ) to an executable script on the server. That script will then check the account, and parse any emails contained in it, and act accordingly.

-iDunk

Who did you use? and do they support MMS?

[iDunk]

I didn't. I used the email method, because I didn't need to pay the premium to have an actual number. For my use, it was something where I could just add the email as a new contact and send messages away to it. The system I was building wasn't build for large-scale or public use, rather a few individuals wanting to update some things on a site.

-iDunk