In needing to test some mailing functionality in his application Adrian Schneider has come across two ways to handle it on a machine that may not have mail up and configured correctly - mail a mail transport class or sent up a pseudo mail server.

I think a staging environment is more appropriate to actually have email being sent out. Nevertheless, it has made testing any email functionality a little cumbersome. I've done a little research, and have found two ways to tackle the problem. I've also included code samples and other resources to get you started.

The first method - the transport class - uses the Zend_Mail_Transport component (and interfaces) to set the transport for the application and handle the routing from an extension of the Abstract class. The second method involves changes to system settings in the php.ini and adding in a simple script to force a forward to the right address. Windows users can also use fakemail to accomplish a similar thing.