[thelist] Email Validator

Matthew Blanchard blanchardmatthew at hotmail.com
Thu Dec 6 09:46:20 CST 2001


> From: ".jeff" <jeff at members.evolt.org>
> Subject: RE: [thelist] Email Validator


> matthew,
>
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > From: Matthew Blanchard
> >
> > > http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=26
> >
> > The page says:
> >
> > "Email validator that adheres directly to the
> > specification for email address naming. It allows for
> > everything from ipaddress and country-code domains, to
> > very rare characters in the username."
> >
> > I don't know of any such "specification", and I don't
> > think one exists.
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
>
> guess again.  it's one of the most famous specifications.  it's called rfc
> 822.
>
> http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/822/index.htm
>

Thanks, Jeff.

I know about this document, but it's quite unrestrictive and so it doesn't
help us:

  address = mailbox / group
  mailbox = addr-spec
  addr-spec = local-part "@" domain
  local-part = word *("." word)
  word = atom / quoted-string
  atom = 1*<any CHAR except specials, SPACE and CTLs>

hence the user name part can have almost any character.

The following page has some more info

http://cr.yp.to/im/address.html

I don't see any linkage between the regexp at
http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=26 and the RFC.

The best thing to do is not to validate email addresses at all. The first
link I gave (in this discussion) was to a FAQ with some good arguments (I
guess poeple didn't click it because the link was wrapped. OT question: is
it my email client who is responsible for the wrap?)

> http://members.evolt.org/jeff/

The toolbar it cute! :-)







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