Preserve special html char?

I am setting up a phpbb board and may need to email people things from time to time, well just tested out the mail() function to my yahoo beta account and if i try and send a link such as,

PHP Code:

---

<?php
$content ="<a href ='http://www.mylink.com'>Click me</a>";
mail($to,$subject,$content);

//etc..
?>

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Then it not rendered right in yahoo the <'s become &lt; etc, i have tried using,

PHP Code:

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$content = htmlspecialchars("<a href ='http://www.mylink'>click me</a>", ENT_QUOTES); 


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but no difference...

any ideas?

I don't recommend sending HTML emails, but to do so, you need to set the content type to text/html; otherwise, the receiving client will treat them as plain text, which is what's happening here.

PHP Code:

---

mail($to, $subject, $content, "Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8\r\n"); 


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Some examples.

excellent as always, why against html email's?

Here's a list of reasons: Why HTML in E-Mail is a Bad Idea.
The author may have largely changed his opinion since, but I agree with most, although not all, of the points on that page.