Valid e-mail address
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Hi, Does anyone now a function/class to check if an e-mail address is valid? /Ola Carlsson
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Hi, Does anyone now a function/class to check if an e-mail address is valid? /Ola Carlsson
Apart from parsing it for form, I don't think that is remotely possible. If I give you cgraus@mydomain.com, how can you tell that mydomain.com knows what to do with this address, except by sending an email to it and seeing if it bounces back ? Christian The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little. "I'm somewhat suspicious of STL though. My (test,experimental) program worked first time. Whats that all about??!?! - Jon Hulatt, 22/3/2002
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Apart from parsing it for form, I don't think that is remotely possible. If I give you cgraus@mydomain.com, how can you tell that mydomain.com knows what to do with this address, except by sending an email to it and seeing if it bounces back ? Christian The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little. "I'm somewhat suspicious of STL though. My (test,experimental) program worked first time. Whats that all about??!?! - Jon Hulatt, 22/3/2002
Christian Graus wrote: except by sending an email to it and seeing if it bounces back ? My domain has a catch all, so nothing bounces back, just forwards valid stuff and deletes junk after a while. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
I think it's interesting that we often qu-ote each other in our sigs and attribute the qu-otes to "The Lounge". --- Daniel Fergusson, "The Lounge"
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Hi, Does anyone now a function/class to check if an e-mail address is valid? /Ola Carlsson
Check the return status from the POP3 protocol's
USERcommand. A "+OK" should be returned for valid usernames. This should work even for forwarding POP mailboxes. /ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com -
Hi, Does anyone now a function/class to check if an e-mail address is valid? /Ola Carlsson
Not all POP servers will let you connect from outside their domain! In the US, ATTBI (previously MediaOne) is notorious for no longer allowing you to check your mail remotely thru a POP email client, unless you're logged into ATTBI. However, they do offer a crappy web interface into their email system, so you can get/send email from any browser. /ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com
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Check the return status from the POP3 protocol's
USERcommand. A "+OK" should be returned for valid usernames. This should work even for forwarding POP mailboxes. /ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.comDoes this mean it would be trivial to write a spam filter, simply by checking all incoming mail for a valid return address ? Christian The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little. "I'm somewhat suspicious of STL though. My (test,experimental) program worked first time. Whats that all about??!?! - Jon Hulatt, 22/3/2002
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Does this mean it would be trivial to write a spam filter, simply by checking all incoming mail for a valid return address ? Christian The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little. "I'm somewhat suspicious of STL though. My (test,experimental) program worked first time. Whats that all about??!?! - Jon Hulatt, 22/3/2002
It's pretty easy to write, but I doubt it would be efficient, since you'd have to try to establish a connection to the POP server for each unique domain. Also, it could easily give you bogus results - for example if you received mail from a valid address
user@attbi.com, the checker would return "false" since you won't be able to connect toattbi.com's POP server from outside their domain. Further, if your domain's POP server had a catch-all account, any username at that domain could be flagged as being valid. Imho, there's no foolproof way to verify the validity of an email address. /ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com -
Not all POP servers will let you connect from outside their domain! In the US, ATTBI (previously MediaOne) is notorious for no longer allowing you to check your mail remotely thru a POP email client, unless you're logged into ATTBI. However, they do offer a crappy web interface into their email system, so you can get/send email from any browser. /ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com
Neither will Yahoo! starting with the 24th this month :( Best regards, Alexandru Savescu
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Does this mean it would be trivial to write a spam filter, simply by checking all incoming mail for a valid return address ? Christian The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little. "I'm somewhat suspicious of STL though. My (test,experimental) program worked first time. Whats that all about??!?! - Jon Hulatt, 22/3/2002
It's actually totally unworkable. You have no way of knowing what a remote domains POP server is. MX records only point to SMTP mail exchangers, and often these have nothing to do with pop. Also, very often POP servers are behind firewalls. Sorry to dissapoint you all with my lack of a witty or poignant signature.