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Valid Email Code needs tweeking

Hi, We use this for our Validate Email code

Return Regex.IsMatch(strEmailAddress, "^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.)|(([a-zA-Z0-9\-]+\.)+))([a-zA-Z]{2,4}|[0-9]{1,3})(\]?)$")

How would I ammend this code to eliminate semi colon (;) from the characters to validate.

The reason being if someone wants to list several emails seperated by semi colon, we would like to do that!

Should be an easy one for someone in the know for 250pts.

Thanks in advance!

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

blandyuk

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Nasir Razzaq

The regex is for validating a single email address. So the best bet is to split the email addresses at ; and validate individually as said above. For example

For each em in txtemail.text.split(";")
'validate (em)
Next

PatKearney

ASKER

Thanks guys.

we are just about to release a new patch for our software and were looking to get this in if an easy fix. Guess, we'll give a try after release as might be opening a can of worms otherwise, and fixing something not broken.

artaxt

As blandyuk said, the best bet is to split the string and then do your pattern comparison against each element of the array:

var isValidEmail = true;
var emailPattern = "(?i)(?<address>([a-z0-9_\-\.^;]+@(\[)?(?<domain>([0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3})|(([a-z0-9\-]+\.)+([a-z]{2,4}|[0-9]{1,3})))(\])?));?";
var emailAddresses = "blah;@something.com;john.doe@somecorp.com;ja4ne.eyere@books.from.england.net;abc@123.456.789";

foreach (var item in emailAddresses.Split(Convert.ToChar(";")))
{
    isValidEmail = isValidEmail && Regex.IsMatch(item, emailPattern);

    Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} an email address", item, Regex.IsMatch(item, EmailValidator) ? "is" : "is not");
}

Console.WriteLine("Whole email string is valid: {0}", isValidEmail)

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The test pattern that I put into the sample code offeres a couple of advantages. First, it's case insensitive. This removes the need for [a-zA-Z] expression. Second, if you're looking for email addresses in some other string, it doesn't need to be just email addresses. You could parse a paragraph and pull all of the email address instances from it (ex. "You should send messages to xyz@abc.com for a quick response. Send email to abc@123.net for a slower one.") Finally, the addresses are called out as named group, "address", so it's possible get them all specifically.

I hope that you find this useful, and good luck with your project.

Scott