Email Validation

[br0ken]

Every single email validation function I've seen uses some form of regex, however today I found out about PHP filters. I was wondering if there is any downsides to using PHP filters? The reason I ask this because in my opinion, it seems much simpler to use these rather than a complex regex operation.

 

Here is my function.

 

function validEmail($email)
{
if (filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL))
{
	return true;
}
else
{
	return false;
}
}

 

To me the above seems much simpler yet I see no one using it!

[shadiadiph]

doesn't work properly

 

try it with

 

[email protected]

[br0ken]

Really? That's odd. I can't test it right now but that's an actual PHP function, it shouldn't have any errors.

 

Can anyone else confirm this?

[shadiadiph]

It shouldn't you are right but it allowed me to submit what i typed with no errors

 

I have found one that seems to work but i am sure it has some error somewhere

 

[redarrow]

 

Little example for you m8.

 

If you need to no what the regexp is doing just ask.

<?php

$email=array("me@me_.com","_me@m_e.net","[email protected]");

$e=implode(' ',$email);

if(preg_match("/[a-z0-9\-\_]{0,50}+@[a-z0-9\_\-]{0,50}\.[a-z]{0,3}$/i",$e)){

echo " correct emails\n $e ";

}else {

echo "incorrect emails\n $e";
}
?>

[br0ken]

doesn't work properly

 

try it with

 

[email protected]

 

Isn't that a valid email though? Domains can contain hyphens so 2abc-.com is no different from something like php-freaks.com.

[shadiadiph]

the closest I have found that works so far is but i am sure it has an error somewhere but i haven't found it yet.

 

$emailx ="/^[a-z0-9]+([_.-][a-z0-9]+)*@([a-z0-9]+([.-][a-z0-9]+)*)+\\.[a-z]{2,4}$/";

if ($email=="") 
{
$error[] ="Email is a required field please complete and submit it again.";
}
elseif (preg_match($emailx, $email) ==false) 
{
$error[] ="Please fill in a correct email address";
}