Emailing an array of data in $this->email->message();

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
Hello, I'm new to the forum. I've recently found CodeIgniter after thinking, "there's got to be a better way to do this." So far, I feel as if CodeIgniter ends that search.

I'm trying to send an email with post variables. It's also inserting the data into a database. My controller looks like this:

Code:

function contact_form(){
        
        if($this->input->post('email')){
            
            $this->load->model('MContacts', '', TRUE);
            $this->MContacts->addContact();
            
            $name = $this->input->post('name');
            $email = $this->input->post('email');
            $saddress = $this->input->post('saddress');
            $phone = $this->input->post('phone');
            $body = $this->input->post('message');
            
            $mail_message = '
            Name: ' .$name. '
            Email: '.$email. '
            Address: '.$saddress. '
            Phone: '.$phone. '
            Message: '.$body;
            
            $this->email->from('VGH Form', 'VGH Form');
            $this->email->to('[email protected]');
            $this->email->subject('Submission from the Website');
            $this->email->message($mail_message);    
            $this->email->send();
            
            redirect('main/thanks', 'refresh');
        
        } else {
            
            redirect('main/contact', 'refresh');
            
        }
        
        
            $this->load->vars($data);
            $this->load->view('template');
        
    }

and my model looks like this:

Code:

function addContact() {
                        
            $now = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");
            $data = array(
                'name' => $this->input->xss_clean($this->input->post('name')),
                'email' => $this->input->xss_clean($this->input->post('email')),
                'saddress' => $this->input->xss_clean($this->input->post('saddress')),
                'phone' => $this->input->xss_clean($this->input->post('phone')),
                'message' => $this->input->xss_clean($this->input->post('message')),
                'ipaddress' => $this->input->ip_address(),
                'stamp' => $now);

            $this->db->insert('contacts', $data);
            
        }

This works properly, but I'm wondering if there's a better way to get the $data array with all the post variables into the message of the email, or if this is the best, most concise solution. For example, if I just replace $mail_message with $data, I get an error stating that $data is an undefined variable.

I'm hoping that I'm overlooking something simple and that a more experienced programmer can shed some light on this for me.

Thanks!
Nathan