02-11-2005, 05:38 AM
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New Member
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 2
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Help with validating emailadress (preg_match)
Hi,
I am trying to validate an emailadress, so that you enter a valid email. I am using this script:
PHP Code:
$email = 'user@domain.com';
if (preg_match("^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,6})$^", $email)) {
echo 'Email is correct!';
}
The expression i did not come up with myself, i found it, I dont fully understand it tho. Is there someone (PLEASE!) that can break it up and try to explain what the different blocks mean?
I realize that the [_a-z0-9-] is the valid chars, but how about the other things? Like the ^ at the beginning, and what difference does the + and the * make between them blocks?
Anyway, i would truly love it if someone would try to explain this to me. Thanks!
Hugs / Merilille
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02-11-2005, 06:34 AM
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Web Hosting Evangelist
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02-11-2005, 07:19 AM
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Aspiring Evangelist
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 429
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Regular expressions aren't a speciality of mine, but I'll have a go.
I'd read it in sections.
"^[_a-z0-9-]+(.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(.[a-z]{2,6})$^"
^[_a-z0-9-]+
^ = starting at the beginning of the line.
[_a-z0-9-] = match a-z, 0-0, _ or -
+ = (above match) one or more times.
(.[_a-z0-9-]+)*
( = start a subpattern.
. = match a full stop, single character.
[_a-z0-9-] = match a-z, 0-0, _ or - again.
+ = (above match) one or more times.
) = end a subpattern.
* = match the preceding thing (in this case the subpattern) 0 or more times.
@
@ = match that @ character, once.
[a-z0-9-]+
[a-z0-9-] = match a-z or 0-9.
+ = ... one or more times.
(.[a-z0-9-]+)*
( = start another subpattern.
. = match a full stop, once.
[a-z0-9-] = match a-z or 0-9.
+ = ... one or more times.
) = end a subpattern.
* = match the preceding thing (in this case the subpattern) 0 or more times.
(.[a-z]{2,6})$^
( = start another subpattern.
. = match a full stop, once.
[a-z]{2,6} = match a-z for 2 to 6 characters.
) = end a subpattern.
$ = end of line.
^ = starting at the beginning of the line (not sure why that's there).
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02-11-2005, 10:57 AM
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learning is in the doing
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Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Alberta, Canada
Posts: 3,109
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disoft, for someone who's not sure what they are doing, you do pretty good. 
I would also agree that the caret ^ at the end should not be there.
Was also wondering if anyone sees this code as faster, compared to what was originally posted:
if ( preg_match ( "^[A-z0-9\._-]+[@][A-z0-9_-]+([.][A-z0-9\._-]+)+[A-z]{2,6}$", $email ) )
Haven't tried it yet but wondering how important the * pattern match is, since the whole variable is supposed to be a pattern match anyway.
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02-11-2005, 11:03 AM
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New Member
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Join Date: Feb 2005
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Thanks alot for the answers, they were all great!
Regarding the last ^ .. if i dont have i get this error message:
"Warning: No ending delimiter '^' found in C:\web\index.php on line 28"
When i place it there in the end, the error goes away .. thats why i put it there, im not that good with this stuff but it worked 
I do have one question tho about my original post, it seems as if an email like "firstname..lastname@host.com" is valid, and "firstname!#%lastname@host.com" is also valid. Well, my script seems to think so anyway.
Anyone got any idea to why this happens? And how i can fix it?
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02-11-2005, 11:53 AM
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learning is in the doing
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Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Alberta, Canada
Posts: 3,109
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It would seem that escaping is required:
(preg_match("/^[_a-z0-9-]+(.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(.[a-z]{2,6})$/", $email))
You should then notice that the address you say will work, will not work.
Also, the character number matching should be a 1, not a 2 - {1,6}.
Otherwise you find a Domain name ending in 2 characters (.ca, .us, etc.)
will return an error when they shouldn't.
Funny how it's hard to remember to count from zero instead of one. 
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02-11-2005, 12:07 PM
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Web Hosting Evangelist
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I'm sure with preg_match, you have to have the same character at the beginning and the end to specify the beginning and end of the regex to PHP. This can be any character, but most people use ^ as it is not regualry used in regex's
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02-11-2005, 01:02 PM
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Web Hosting Master
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Quote:
Originally posted by Xenatino
I'm sure with preg_match, you have to have the same character at the beginning and the end to specify the beginning and end of the regex to PHP. This can be any character, but most people use ^ as it is not regualry used in regex's
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Most people use '/' or '#' as they're not regular expression meta characters. Using '^' is asinine because of it's ambiguity.
Also of note is that '.' is a wildcare in REs, and as it isn't escaped here the '.'s which are intended to match only a full stop, will actually match any character whatsoever. This may cause false-positives. REs are parsed into a tree and executed in that fashion. There's negligible difference between using '*' and '+', and oftentimes '*' will be faster as it's less strict, and thus requires less testing.
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02-11-2005, 01:19 PM
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Newbie
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Quote:
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Also of note is that '.' is a wildcare in REs, and as it isn't escaped here the '.'s which are intended to match only a full stop, will actually match any character whatsoever.
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I am wondering about this aswell, since "user%username@host.com" will work, but % can be any char it seems. Hmm how would i go about to fix this?
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02-11-2005, 02:07 PM
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Newbie
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Stockholm
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Solved it, needed a backslash in front on the dots.
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02-11-2005, 02:24 PM
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Just my 2 cents but if you really want to be picky about validating email addresses:
1. I would break it up first
soandso@someplace.com = soandso , @ , someplace, . , com
2. check each part individually
3. If they check out it's valid
This would be an alternative to using a universal regex to verify.
Just think if you couldn't split the string with '@' it would be invalid right away.
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02-11-2005, 03:31 PM
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Aspiring Evangelist
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Well, personally, I use this complex affair:
PHP Code:
<?php
/*
* The preg_match statement is all one line.
*/
function is_email_format($dataval)
{
return (preg_match("/^[-_.[:alnum:]]+@((([[:alnum:]]|[[:alnum:]][[:alnum:]-]*[[:alnum:]])\.)+(ad|ae|aero|af|ag|ai|al|am|an|ao|aq|ar|arpa|as|at|au|aw|az|ba|bb|bd|be|bf|
bg|bh|bi|biz|bj|bm|bn|bo|br|bs|bt|bv|bw|by|bz|ca|cc|cd|cf|cg|ch|ci|ck|cl|cm|cn
|co|com|coop|cr|cs|cu|cv|cx|cy|cz|de|dj|dk|dm|do|dz|ec|edu|ee|eg|eh|er|es|
et|eu|fi|fj|fk|fm|fo|fr|ga|gb|gd|ge|gf|gh|gi|gl|gm|gn|gov|gp|gq|gr|gs|gt|gu|gw|
gy|hk|hm|hn|hr|ht|hu|id|ie|il|in|info|int|io|iq|ir|is|it|jm|jo|jp|ke|kg|kh|ki|km|kn|
kp|kr|kw|ky|kz|la|lb|lc|li|lk|lr|ls|lt|lu|lv|ly|ma|mc|md|mg|mh|mil|mk|ml|mm|mn
|mo|mp|mq|mr|ms|mt|mu|museum|mv|mw|mx|my|mz|na|name|nc|ne|net|
nf|ng|ni|nl|no|np|nr|nt|nu|nz|om|org|pa|pe|pf|pg|ph|pk|pl|pm|pn|pr|pro|ps|pt
|pw|py|qa|re|ro|ru|rw|sa|sb|sc|sd|se|sg|sh|si|sj|sk|sl|sm|sn|so|sr|st|su|sv|
sy|sz|tc|td|tf|tg|th|tj|tk|tm|tn|to|tp|tr|tt|tv|tw|tz|ua|ug|uk|um|us|uy|uz|va|vc|ve|vg|
vi|vn|vu|wf|ws|ye|yt|yu|za|zm|zw)|(([0-9][0-9]?|[0-1][0-9][0-9]|[2][0-4][0-9]|[2]
[5][0-5])\.){3}([0-9][0-9]?|[0-1][0-9][0-9]|[2][0-4][0-9]|[2][5][0-5]))$/i", $dataval)) ?
true :
false;
}
?>
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02-11-2005, 06:16 PM
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WHT Addict
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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This is what I use in tcl:
regexp {^[^@ ][^@ ]*@[^@ ][^@ ]*\.[^@ ][^@ ]*$} $EMAIL
I am not completely happy with it, but for the most part, it does what I want it to do.
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02-11-2005, 06:58 PM
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Newbie
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Join Date: Jan 2004
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I ended up using this, could anyone please comment it?
PHP Code:
function validateemail($email) {
if (preg_match("/^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.(ad|ae|aero|af|ag|ai|al|am|an|ao|aq|ar|arpa|as|at|au|aw|az|ba|bb|bd|be|bf|bg|bh|bi|biz|bj|bm|bn|bo|br|bs|bt|bv|bw|by|bz|ca|cc|cd|cf|cg|ch|ci|ck|cl|cm|cn|co|com|coop|cr|cs|cu|cv|cx|cy|cz|de|dj|dk|dm|do|dz|ec|edu|ee|eg|eh|er|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fk|fm|fo|fr|ga|gb|gd|ge|gf|gh|gi|gl|gm|gn|gov|gp|gq|gr|gs|gt|gu|gw|gy|hk|hm|hn|hr|ht|hu|id|ie|il|in|info|int|io|iq|ir|is|it|jm|jo|jp|ke|kg|kh|ki|km|kn|kp|kr|kw|ky|kz|la|lb|lc|li|lk|lr|ls|lt|lu|lv|ly|ma|mc|md|mg|mh|mil|mk|ml|mm|mn|mo|mp|mq|mr|ms|mt|mu|museum|mv|mw|mx|my|mz|na|name|nc|ne|net|nf|ng|ni|nl|no|np|nr|nt|nu|nz|om|org|pa|pe|pf|pg|ph|pk|pl|pm|pn|pr|pro|ps|pt|pw|py|qa|re|ro|ru|rw|sa|sb|sc|sd|se|sg|sh|si|sj|sk|sl|sm|sn|so|sr|st|su|sv|sy|sz|tc|td|tf|tg|th|tj|tk|tm|tn|to|tp|tr|tt|tv|tw|tz|ua|ug|uk|um|us|uy|uz|va|vc|ve|vg|vi|vn|vu|wf|ws|ye|yt|yu|za|zm|zw))$/", $email))
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
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02-11-2005, 10:25 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Suedish
I ended up using this, could anyone please comment it?
PHP Code:
function validateemail($email) {
if (preg_match("/^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.(ad|ae|aero|af|ag|ai|al|am|an|ao|aq|ar|arpa|as|at|au|aw|az|ba|bb|bd|be|bf|bg|bh|bi|biz|bj|bm|bn|bo|br|bs|bt|bv|bw|by|bz|ca|cc|cd|cf|cg|ch|ci|ck|cl|cm|cn|co|com|coop|cr|cs|cu|cv|cx|cy|cz|de|dj|dk|dm|do|dz|ec|edu|ee|eg|eh|er|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fk|fm|fo|fr|ga|gb|gd|ge|gf|gh|gi|gl|gm|gn|gov|gp|gq|gr|gs|gt|gu|gw|gy|hk|hm|hn|hr|ht|hu|id|ie|il|in|info|int|io|iq|ir|is|it|jm|jo|jp|ke|kg|kh|ki|km|kn|kp|kr|kw|ky|kz|la|lb|lc|li|lk|lr|ls|lt|lu|lv|ly|ma|mc|md|mg|mh|mil|mk|ml|mm|mn|mo|mp|mq|mr|ms|mt|mu|museum|mv|mw|mx|my|mz|na|name|nc|ne|net|nf|ng|ni|nl|no|np|nr|nt|nu|nz|om|org|pa|pe|pf|pg|ph|pk|pl|pm|pn|pr|pro|ps|pt|pw|py|qa|re|ro|ru|rw|sa|sb|sc|sd|se|sg|sh|si|sj|sk|sl|sm|sn|so|sr|st|su|sv|sy|sz|tc|td|tf|tg|th|tj|tk|tm|tn|to|tp|tr|tt|tv|tw|tz|ua|ug|uk|um|us|uy|uz|va|vc|ve|vg|vi|vn|vu|wf|ws|ye|yt|yu|za|zm|zw))$/", $email))
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
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Two things about this, and one about this topic in general. First all ascii characters are allowed in an email address except space ()<>@,;:\".[]. Your method will not allow all of the the chars that rfc 822 allows. Second, using this method means that you have to keep up with new top level domains as they are added.
As for this topic in general, spending a lot of time trying to validate email addresses in code is a wast of time. When some guy gives us an address like lskjdf@lskjf our validators will pick it up and flag the address, but as soon as the user knows that he cannot use that address, he will put in something like me@blahblahblah.com. That is why I do the simplest validation up front, and let the mail server do the real validation on the back end.
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