If You Can't Do Email Validation Right
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PaulowniaK wrote:
My email address has a "-" in the bit after the "@", which confused a few sites in the old days but it seems OK these days
Somebody I know has a "-" in his name. He has had issues with that, and ever since he told me about it I have made sure any validation I do allows for as many characters as is possible.
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Don't do it at all. I'm tired of seeing messages like this, all because my email address is a single character (e.g., a@abc.com). I have a proxy email address for situations like this, but it's annoying that I have to do that. :sigh: Recently, I've seen this on an airline website and on the website in the above screenshot. One large company, and one small one. I'm tempted to try this with Code Project just for the heck of it. :rolleyes:
The only way to validate an email address is to send an email to it, so do 'soft validation': a warning that does not prevent form submission
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. [Chinese Proverb] Jonathan C Dickinson (C# Software Engineer)
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Don't do it at all. I'm tired of seeing messages like this, all because my email address is a single character (e.g., a@abc.com). I have a proxy email address for situations like this, but it's annoying that I have to do that. :sigh: Recently, I've seen this on an airline website and on the website in the above screenshot. One large company, and one small one. I'm tempted to try this with Code Project just for the heck of it. :rolleyes:
I was once very seriously advised by a mail server admin not to use "/" in email addresses before "@" because it's not a valid character there. I told him to go read the RFC, which he refused to do. I can only say "WTF!?".
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I too have a long, double-barreled name. I take the greatest exception to website forms that tell me "Your name is invalid". That's a sure way to upset your potential customers very quickly indeed. My company name is long, and hence my email address is too. It's usually OK online but had to fill in a passport form this weekend where there weren't enough characters... :-(
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The only way to validate an email address is to send an email to it, so do 'soft validation': a warning that does not prevent form submission
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. [Chinese Proverb] Jonathan C Dickinson (C# Software Engineer)
Jonathan C Dickinson wrote:
The only way to validate an email address is to send an email to it
Somewhere along the line something's got to validate it. If you are using some sort of framework, then the framework will likely do the necessary validation for you, but if you are using the raw SMTP protocol or something that is a thin wrapper around it, failing to check for characters that are part of the protocol (e.g. comma, colon, semi-colon or new line characters) opens you up to injection attack vulnerability.
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Don't do it at all. I'm tired of seeing messages like this, all because my email address is a single character (e.g., a@abc.com). I have a proxy email address for situations like this, but it's annoying that I have to do that. :sigh: Recently, I've seen this on an airline website and on the website in the above screenshot. One large company, and one small one. I'm tempted to try this with Code Project just for the heck of it. :rolleyes:
As developers it is our duty to try to break the work of others. :cool:
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Don't do it at all. I'm tired of seeing messages like this, all because my email address is a single character (e.g., a@abc.com). I have a proxy email address for situations like this, but it's annoying that I have to do that. :sigh: Recently, I've seen this on an airline website and on the website in the above screenshot. One large company, and one small one. I'm tempted to try this with Code Project just for the heck of it. :rolleyes:
Most websites expect an email address to be longer than 1 char, this is because when people don't want to give their email address, they usually use a@a.com or sometihng that short.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Most websites expect an email address to be longer than 1 char, this is because when people don't want to give their email address, they usually use a@a.com or sometihng that short.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
Which wouldn't be of much use, because validation would fail, then they'd change it to ab@ab.com.
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As developers it is our duty to try to break the work of others. :cool:
One of my first jobs was to do quality assurance; it is now a natural impulse to try to break the work of others. :-D
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Which wouldn't be of much use, because validation would fail, then they'd change it to ab@ab.com.
I tend to use Fuck@You.com for that.
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PaulowniaK wrote:
My email address has a "-" in the bit after the "@", which confused a few sites in the old days but it seems OK these days
Somebody I know has a "-" in his name. He has had issues with that, and ever since he told me about it I have made sure any validation I do allows for as many characters as is possible.
