What is the most elegant code to validate that a string is a valid email address?
C# code to validate email address
c++emailemail-validation
Related Solutions
Using regular expressions is probably the best way. You can see a bunch of tests here (taken from chromium)
function validateEmail(email) {
const re = /^(([^<>()[\]\\.,;:\s@"]+(\.[^<>()[\]\\.,;:\s@"]+)*)|(".+"))@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\])|(([a-zA-Z\-0-9]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,}))$/;
return re.test(String(email).toLowerCase());
}
Here's the example of regular expresion that accepts unicode:
const re = /^(([^<>()[\]\.,;:\s@\"]+(\.[^<>()[\]\.,;:\s@\"]+)*)|(\".+\"))@(([^<>()[\]\.,;:\s@\"]+\.)+[^<>()[\]\.,;:\s@\"]{2,})$/i;
But keep in mind that one should not rely only upon JavaScript validation. JavaScript can easily be disabled. This should be validated on the server side as well.
Here's an example of the above in action:
function validateEmail(email) {
const re = /^(([^<>()[\]\\.,;:\s@\"]+(\.[^<>()[\]\\.,;:\s@\"]+)*)|(\".+\"))@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\])|(([a-zA-Z\-0-9]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,}))$/;
return re.test(email);
}
function validate() {
const $result = $("#result");
const email = $("#email").val();
$result.text("");
if (validateEmail(email)) {
$result.text(email + " is valid :)");
$result.css("color", "green");
} else {
$result.text(email + " is not valid :(");
$result.css("color", "red");
}
return false;
}
$("#email").on("input", validate);
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<label for=email>Enter an email address:</label>
<input id="email">
<h2 id="result"></h2>
Whereas one approach is to implement the ICloneable
interface (described here, so I won't regurgitate), here's a nice deep clone object copier I found on The Code Project a while ago and incorporated it into our code.
As mentioned elsewhere, it requires your objects to be serializable.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
/// <summary>
/// Reference Article http://www.codeproject.com/KB/tips/SerializedObjectCloner.aspx
/// Provides a method for performing a deep copy of an object.
/// Binary Serialization is used to perform the copy.
/// </summary>
public static class ObjectCopier
{
/// <summary>
/// Perform a deep copy of the object via serialization.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">The type of object being copied.</typeparam>
/// <param name="source">The object instance to copy.</param>
/// <returns>A deep copy of the object.</returns>
public static T Clone<T>(T source)
{
if (!typeof(T).IsSerializable)
{
throw new ArgumentException("The type must be serializable.", nameof(source));
}
// Don't serialize a null object, simply return the default for that object
if (ReferenceEquals(source, null)) return default;
using var Stream stream = new MemoryStream();
IFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
formatter.Serialize(stream, source);
stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
return (T)formatter.Deserialize(stream);
}
}
The idea is that it serializes your object and then deserializes it into a fresh object. The benefit is that you don't have to concern yourself about cloning everything when an object gets too complex.
In case of you prefer to use the new extension methods of C# 3.0, change the method to have the following signature:
public static T Clone<T>(this T source)
{
// ...
}
Now the method call simply becomes objectBeingCloned.Clone();
.
EDIT (January 10 2015) Thought I'd revisit this, to mention I recently started using (Newtonsoft) Json to do this, it should be lighter, and avoids the overhead of [Serializable] tags. (NB @atconway has pointed out in the comments that private members are not cloned using the JSON method)
/// <summary>
/// Perform a deep Copy of the object, using Json as a serialization method. NOTE: Private members are not cloned using this method.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">The type of object being copied.</typeparam>
/// <param name="source">The object instance to copy.</param>
/// <returns>The copied object.</returns>
public static T CloneJson<T>(this T source)
{
// Don't serialize a null object, simply return the default for that object
if (ReferenceEquals(source, null)) return default;
// initialize inner objects individually
// for example in default constructor some list property initialized with some values,
// but in 'source' these items are cleaned -
// without ObjectCreationHandling.Replace default constructor values will be added to result
var deserializeSettings = new JsonSerializerSettings {ObjectCreationHandling = ObjectCreationHandling.Replace};
return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(source), deserializeSettings);
}
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Best Solution
What about this?
Per Stuart's comment, this compares the final address with the original string instead of always returning true. MailAddress tries to parse a string with spaces into "Display Name" and "Address" portions, so the original version was returning false positives.
To clarify, the question is asking whether a particular string is a valid representation of an e-mail address, not whether an e-mail address is a valid destination to send a message. For that, the only real way is to send a message to confirm.
Note that e-mail addresses are more forgiving than you might first assume. These are all perfectly valid forms:
For most use cases, a false "invalid" is much worse for your users and future proofing than a false "valid". Here's an article that used to be the accepted answer to this question (that answer has since been deleted). It has a lot more detail and some other ideas of how to solve the problem.
Providing sanity checks is still a good idea for user experience. Assuming the e-mail address is valid, you could look for known top-level domains, check the domain for an MX record, check for spelling errors from common domain names (gmail.cmo), etc. Then present a warning giving the user a chance to say "yes, my mail server really does allow 🌮🍳🎁 as an email address."
As for using exception handling for business logic, I agree that is a thing to be avoided. But this is one of those cases where the convenience and clarity may outweigh the dogma.
Besides, if you do anything else with the e-mail address, it's probably going to involve turning it to a MailAddress. Even if you don't use this exact function, you will probably want to use the same pattern. You can also check for specific kinds of failure by catching different exceptions: null, empty, or invalid format.
--- Further reading ---
Documentation for System.Net.Mail.MailAddress
Explanation of what makes up a valid email address