📬 XKCD Comic Mailer

A PHP-based daily email comic subscription system for XKCD, built using file-based storage, HTML email formatting, Mailpit for testing, and CRON automation.
This project was inspired by the rtCamp Associate Software Engineer assignment and rebuilt as a personal showcase.

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📌 Features

• ✅ Email subscription with verification (6-digit code)
• ✅ Unsubscribe flow with verification code
• ✅ HTML email format with latest XKCD comic
• ✅ Daily CRON job using setup_cron.sh
• ✅ No external database – emails stored in registered_emails.txt
• ✅ Responsive UI with theme toggle
• ✅ Tested using PHP 8.3 and Mailpit SMTP server

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🖼️ Screenshots

📁 All screenshots can be found inside the /screenshots folder.

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• PHP 8.3 (No frameworks)
• Mailpit (SMTP testing)
• Git Bash (for CRON simulation on Windows)
• HTML + CSS (Custom dark/light UI)

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🧪 How to Run (Windows)

1. Clone this repo:

   git clone https://github.com/Ani811625/xkcd-comic-mailer
   cd xkcd-comic-mailer/src

2. Start Mailpit SMTP server:

   mailpit

3. Launch index.php in your local server (e.g., XAMPP or PHP CLI).

4. To send the daily comic manually:

   php cron.php

5. To auto-schedule via CRON:

   bash setup_cron.sh

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📂 Project Structure

xkcd-comic-mailer/
└── src/
    ├── index.php              # Subscription page
    ├── unsubscribe.php        # Unsubscription page
    ├── cron.php               # Sends XKCD comics to emails
    ├── functions.php          # All helper functions
    ├── setup_cron.sh          # CRON job automation
    ├── registered_emails.txt  # Stores subscribed emails

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This project is for educational/demo purposes only and was developed as part of a hiring challenge simulation.

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🙌 Acknowledgements

• XKCD for their open comic archive
• rtCamp for the original assignment
• Mailpit for email testing