Regular expression question

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

/^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+([.][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*@[a-zA-Z_-]+([.][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*$/

I'm using this to try to validate a small subset of the valid e-mail
addresses allowed by the relevant RFC (alphanumerics, underscores, and
dashes). I've tested it and it seems to work - I'm just looking for
helpful hints :)

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cybers pace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

Re: Regular expression question

Christopher Benson-Manica <ataru@nospam.c yberspace.org> writes:
[color=blue]
> /^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+([.][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*@[a-zA-Z_-]+([.][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*$/
>
> I'm using this to try to validate a small subset of the valid e-mail
> addresses allowed by the relevant RFC (alphanumerics, underscores, and
> dashes). I've tested it and it seems to work - I'm just looking for
> helpful hints :)[/color]

Well, one hint would be to not take such a restrictive subset. :)

The range [a-zA-Z0-9_] can be written as \w, and [.] and \. are
equivalent, so a shorter version is:

/^[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*@[\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)+$/

(I changed the last "*" to "+", because all domain names must have at
least one ".").

Again, I can't see what real purpose such a restrictive subset can
be used for. :)
/L
--
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - lrn@hotpop.com
DHTML Death Colors: <URL:http://www.infimum.dk/HTML/rasterTriangleD OM.html>
'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine.'

[Michael Winter]

Re: Regular expression question

Christopher Benson-Manica wrote:
[color=blue]
> /^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+([.][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*@[a-zA-Z_-]+([.][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*$/[/color]

Rather than the character class

[a-zA-Z0-9_-]

you can use

[\w-]

I'd also escape the dots with a backslash, rather than specifying a
character class.

Making the last group optional is debatable. Whilst I believe it's
valid (an address could be a single string if it aliases another
destination), it's not of much value on the Web as all domains will
have at least one dot.

Out of interest, did you intend to make the two character classes
after the @ different, or is one of them a typo?

[snip]

Mike

--
Michael Winter
Replace ".invalid" with ".uk" to reply by e-mail.

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

Re: Regular expression question

Michael Winter <m.winter@bluey onder.co.invali d> spoke thus:
[color=blue]
> [\w-][/color]

I wasn't aware you could do that - I will. Thanks.
[color=blue]
> Out of interest, did you intend to make the two character classes
> after the @ different, or is one of them a typo?[/color]

It was a typo, which I suppose further argues in favor of the
abbreviated version you presented above :)

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cybers pace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

[OT: was Re: Regular expression question]

Lasse Reichstein Nielsen <lrn@hotpop.com > spoke thus:
[color=blue]
> Again, I can't see what real purpose such a restrictive subset can
> be used for. :)[/color]

Do any real e-mail addresses use the other allowable characters? We
just wanted something fairly simple without characters that might
cause problems elsewhere.

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cybers pace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

Re: [OT: was Re: Regular expression question]

Christopher Benson-Manica <ataru@nospam.c yberspace.org> writes:
[color=blue]
> Do any real e-mail addresses use the other allowable characters? We
> just wanted something fairly simple without characters that might
> cause problems elsewhere.[/color]

I regularly *try* to enter something on the form
name+extrainfo@ example.com
That allows me to quickly create a unique address for each recipient,
so I can see who gives my addres to spammers (and allows me to block it),
all using only one mailbox.

However "cause problems elsewhere" is so vague, that perhaps you
should decide what programs the address must interact with, and what
their requirements are. After all, you probably don't want to turn
somebody away, just because their e-mail address is not matching
the lowest common denominator, unless you *really* need to.

(but no, I don't usually see such addresses)
/L
--
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - lrn@hotpop.com
DHTML Death Colors: <URL:http://www.infimum.dk/HTML/rasterTriangleD OM.html>
'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine.'

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

Re: [OT: was Re: Regular expression question]

Lasse Reichstein Nielsen <lrn@hotpop.com > spoke thus:
[color=blue]
> I regularly *try* to enter something on the form
> name+extrainfo@ example.com
> That allows me to quickly create a unique address for each recipient,
> so I can see who gives my addres to spammers (and allows me to block it),
> all using only one mailbox.[/color]

Hm, I see. I'm fairly certain that we're not a spam entity though :)
[color=blue]
> However "cause problems elsewhere" is so vague, that perhaps you
> should decide what programs the address must interact with, and what
> their requirements are. After all, you probably don't want to turn
> somebody away, just because their e-mail address is not matching
> the lowest common denominator, unless you *really* need to.[/color]

Well, I suppose if we get complaints, we can URIEncode the form fields
and allow some more of the characters, but that doesn't sound too
likely.

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cybers pace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.