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Java Forum / General / December 2006Checking to see if an email address is valid... (non reg-ex)
Hi folks, I have within the last year or so just gotten back into Java and mostly claim to be a Perl programmer. What I want to do is fairly easy within Perl, but I'm not sure how to go about it in Java. I have a web application for a club I belong to that is written within the Tomcat JSP container. One of the pieces of logic I've put in allows a web person (for lack of better term) to be able to click a button, get a form to send email (without exposing the email address of the person getting the email to harvesters) fill out the form and send the email. What I want to do is validate that the email addresses people give as their return email address is valid. Not only as a properly formatted email address, but that the TLD is valid. My hope is that doing this will be yet another way to cut down on spammers. In Perl there exists a module called Email::Valid that allows you to do this. Is there such a thing in the Java world? Sorry if this is a FAQ... I did do a google search before asking and other than commercial products I didn't see anything... - -- Peter L. Berghold Peter@Berghold.Net "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." AIM: redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg ICQ: 11455958 >I have a web application for a club I belong to that is written within >the Tomcat JSP container. One of the pieces of logic I've put in allows >a web person (for lack of better term) to be able to click a button, get >a form to send email (without exposing the email address of the person >getting the email to harvesters) fill out the form and send the email. Ok, so you have a spam form. No worries if there are limits on who can use that page, and how often. >What I want to do is validate that the email addresses people give as >their return email address is valid. "valid" rarely means what you think. There is no static checking that will be sufficient here. The best plan is to try to send to it, and make the user type in a token to prove she recieved it. >Not only as a properly formatted email address, but that the TLD is valid. >My hope is that doing this will be yet another way to cut down on spammers. This is a vain hope. Even if you could know it was a "valid" e-mail address, how do you know it's the address of whoever is using the form? Instead, validate a user's e-mail by sending mail to it, and then remember that e-mail when they confirm they got it by telling you a secret that was in that mail. -- Mark Rafn dagon@dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/> > In Perl there exists a module called Email::Valid that allows you to do > this. Is there such a thing in the Java world? I'm sorry, I don't know if there is a Java module to do this or not. But just checking the TLD wouldn't be so hard. Here's a list of TLDs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains It might be faster and easier to check this in Javascript (on the client) rather than post the data back to the server for a check. This couldn't be hard to code up quick. Heck, I might even try it for fun... ^_^ > > In Perl there exists a module called Email::Valid that allows you to do > > this. Is there such a thing in the Java world? > > I'm sorry, I don't know if there is a Java module to do this or not. > It might be faster and easier to check this in Javascript (on the > client) rather than post the data back to the server for a check. This > couldn't be hard to code up quick. Heck, I might even try it for fun... ^_^ Client side validation is only good to let the user know they have made a mistake, but server side validation is a must in all cases. Either way, there is truely only one way to validate an e-mail address. Send a message to it. You can validate the syntax of the e-mail address, but that doesn't mean its valid. The best ways to cut down on spammers are to use some form of Captcha. Although I'm sure automated programs will get more sophisticated with regards to Captcha, it will still be effective against the majority of spammers. Hope this helps. "Peter L. Berghold" <peter@berghold.net> wrote in news:45940e55$0$5867 $9a6e19ea@unlimited.newshosting.com: > What I want to do is validate that the email addresses people give as > their return email address is valid. Not only as a properly formatted > email address, You can determine the syntactic validity of an email address (i.e. that it conforms to the EBNF given in RFC2822) using the javax.mail.internet.EMailAddress class of the JavaMail package. > but that the TLD is valid. For this, I think you'll need to tear the address apart, and then use java.net. or preferrably a DNS resolver library, to ascertain that the right hand side of the email address (domain or host) has a valid MX record or a valid A record in the DNS. > My hope is that doing this will be yet another way to cut down on > spammers. Doubtful -- spammers routinely forge others' valid email addresses on the crap that they send. Cheers GRB  Signature--------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg R. Broderick gregb+usenet200612@blackholio.dyndns.org A. Top posters. Q. What is the most annoying thing on Usenet? --------------------------------------------------------------------- > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > In Perl there exists a module called Email::Valid that allows you to do > this. Is there such a thing in the Java world? I've not seen anything in Java that determines if an email address is well-formed or not. Would be good though. -Robert > I've not seen anything in Java that determines if an email address is > well-formed or not. Would be good though. Read Greg Broderick's post for that information. - Lew Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. Simply choose a title, complete the application form and submit it. Read more ...
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