Validate email address using PHP

Validate email address using PHP

Answer:

To validate an email address using PHP, you can use the code below. (It is from www.ilovejackdaniels.com/php/email-address-validation , it is not perfect, but better than most of the average solutions found in the Internet)

<?php

function check_email_address($email) {
  // First, we check that there's one @ symbol, 
  // and that the lengths are right.
  if (!ereg("^[^@]{1,64}@[^@]{1,255}$", $email)) {
    // Email invalid because wrong number of characters 
    // in one section or wrong number of @ symbols.
    return false;
  }
  // Split it into sections to make life easier
  $email_array = explode("@", $email);
  $local_array = explode(".", $email_array[0]);
  for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($local_array); $i++) {
    if
(!ereg("^(([A-Za-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-][A-Za-z0-9!#$%&
↪'*+/=?^_`{|}~\.-]{0,63})|(\"[^(\\|\")]{0,62}\"))$",
$local_array[$i])) {
      return false;
    }
  }
  // Check if domain is IP. If not, 
  // it should be valid domain name
  if (!ereg("^\[?[0-9\.]+\]?$", $email_array[1])) {
    $domain_array = explode(".", $email_array[1]);
    if (sizeof($domain_array) < 2) {
        return false; // Not enough parts to domain
    }
    for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($domain_array); $i++) {
      if
(!ereg("^(([A-Za-z0-9][A-Za-z0-9-]{0,61}[A-Za-z0-9])|
↪([A-Za-z0-9]+))$",
$domain_array[$i])) {
        return false;
      }
    }
  }
  return true;
}