OK, so I’m a liar.

On Thursday, I updated my email validation code in response to an problem a reader was having with it. In the comments, as I expected, I was chastised for excluding some valid but unlikely addresses. I explained why I was not going to support those addresses. Then I went ahead and supported them.

Here’s what I said to defend not supporting address with spaces in them:

I know the value of following a standard to the letter, and how it improves interoperability, and so on. I also know the value of spending time on the things that will truly make a difference. When people have complained here about actual email addresses that didn’t work, I fixed the validation. I’m a little interested in supporting esoteric forms, but not much.

As it turns out, I am interested enough in supporting esoteric forms that I went ahead and did it. I guess once the idea of doing a better job was planted by Rik and Ben, I couldn’t resist. It was like an Everest to climb because it was there. So now quoted email addresses and escaped characters are accepted. Here’s the current code:

/**
 * Match an email address.  Return 1 if it's a syntactically valid
 * address, 0 otherwise. The $matches output parameter is an array
 * with 'local' and 'domain' entries if the address was valid.
 */
function MatchEmail($email, &$matches)
{
    $atomchar_re = "[a-z0-9!#$%&'*+\\/=?^_`{|}~-]";
    $escape_re = "(\\\\.)";
    $word_re = "(" . $atomchar_re . "|" . $escape_re . ")+";
    $local_re = $word_re . "(\\." . $word_re . ")*";
    $email_re =
        "/^" .
        "(?P<local>" .
            // Local part is atoms or escaped chars, separated by dots
            $local_re . "|" .
            // or a quoted string
            "\"[^\"]*\"" .
        ")" .
        // Need an at-sign!
        "@" .
        "(?P<domain>" .
            // Domain is anything ending with a dot and 2-4 letters.
            "([a-z0-9.-]+)(\\.[a-z]{2,4})" .
        ")" .
        "$/i";

    // Try to match the email address
    return preg_match($email_re, $email, $matches);
}

/**
 * Determine (as best as possible) whether the email address is valid.
 */
function IsValidEmail($email)
{
    // Presume that the email is invalid
    $valid = 0;

    // Validate the syntax
    if (MatchEmail($email, $matches)) {
        if (function_exists("getmxrr")) {
            $domaintld = $matches['domain'];
            while (substr_count($domaintld, ".") > 0) {
                // Validate the domain
                if (getmxrr($domaintld, $mxrecords)) {
                    $valid = 1;
                    break;
                }

                // Didn't find an MX record.
                // If we have a subdomain, move up the hierarchy.
                list($dummy, $domaintld) = split(".", $domaintld, 2);
            }
        }
        else {
            // Couldn't check the domain with getmxrr, assume the best.
            $valid = 1;
        }
    }
    else {
        $valid = 0;
    }

    return $valid;
}

One of the difficulties in writing code like this is just wading through the dense RFC’s that define the syntax. A document pointed to in the comments by Ben Finney was very helpful: RFC 3696 summarizes the rules in English.

Invaluable while making changes to impenetrable regular expressions are unit tests which both prove that the code works properly, and prove that the code still works properly. That is, they serve both as functional tests and regression tests. I wrote some of those too, so I really think this code works:

OK: joe@example.com matches: local is joe, domain is example.com
OK: joe@sub.example.com matches: local is joe, domain is sub.example.com
OK: joe.shmoe@example.com matches: local is joe.shmoe, domain is example.com
OK: joe+shmoe@example.com matches: local is joe+shmoe, domain is example.com
OK: joe.shmoe.hello_there@example.com matches: local is joe.shmoe.hello_there, domain is example.com
OK: joe.@example.com doesn't match.
OK: joe..shmoe@example.com doesn't match.
OK: .joe@example.com doesn't match.
OK: joe doesn't match.
OK: joe@joe@example.com doesn't match.
OK: joe shmoe@example.com doesn't match.
OK: joe\shmoe@example.com matches: local is joe\shmoe, domain is example.com
OK: doesn't match.
OK: @@ doesn't match.
OK: @example.com doesn't match.
OK: joe@ doesn't match.
OK: joe@127.0.0.1 doesn't match.
OK: joe'shmoe@example.com matches: local is joe'shmoe, domain is example.com
OK: joe\ shmoe@example.com matches: local is joe\ shmoe, domain is example.com
OK: joe\@shmoe@example.com matches: local is joe\@shmoe, domain is example.com
OK: "joe shmoe"@example.com matches: local is "joe shmoe", domain is example.com
OK: "joe@shmoe"@example.com matches: local is "joe@shmoe", domain is example.com
OK: ""@example.com matches: local is "", domain is example.com
OK: joe@[72.9.232.138] doesn't match.
OK: joe@joe\@com doesn't match.

25 tests, 0 failures

By the way: I am not validating these email address so that I can be sure mail will be delivered. Unless you ask for email notifications, I never send email to these addresses. I validate them to prevent spam and discourage anonymous comments. And yes, I know lame-o validation is a weak defense.

Any more complaints?