Re^3: About validating mail id

Neither com.com nor mach.com.com have a valid MX record, and the A record IP for these domains does not accept an SMTP connection, so at the moment they are not valid email addresses. Unless, of course, a local mail server rewrites these addresses into something different, or someone turns on the mail server at those addresses in five minutes, in which case they most certainly are :-)

Just because an MX record isn't propagated to you doesn't mean it doesn't exists. Many companies and organisations have a DNS that looks differently internally than externally. Heck, even my local network consisting of a whopping 3 machines has an internal DNS different from the outside world.

It's not possible to determine a given address exists. What you can do is check whether a given address is syntactically valid (surprisingly many strings are valid addresses - a valid address doesn't have to contain a '@' - this posting will contain many, many valid addresses). But it doesn't mean that an address that is syntactically (according to RFC 822 or any of its successors) invalid isn't deliverable.

Another alternative is to send a message to see what happens. If you get a reply that looks like it was written by a human, it's probably a valid address. (Of course, it may have become invalid after the reply was send....). If you get a bounce, it may be invalid (but I can bounce messages from mutt).

ucbvax!ibm4java!dec4javafan!javafan

Comment on Re^3: About validating mail id

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Re^4: About validating mail id by tirwhan (Abbot) on Feb 03, 2010 at 14:17 UTC
OK, I acknowledge I probably deserved getting the nits picked on my nitpicking node... Just because an MX record isn't propagated to you doesn't mean it doesn't exists. Which, to me, is irrelevant. If I can't resolve the MX and can't send mail to the A record of the domain, the email address is invalid (to me). If your point was that there is no such thing as a globally valid email address then we are in violent agreement. a valid address doesn't have to contain a '@' This is incorrect for email addresses. You can have a syntactically valid mailbox address (which may be delivered locally or rewritten/forwarded to a valid email address by your MTA) without the @, but a syntactically valid email address requires the @ to separate the local and domain part. See RFC5322. But it doesn't mean that an address that is syntactically (according to RFC 822 or any of its successors) invalid isn't deliverable. Weeell, most MTAs I know do check for syntactic validity(at least in the SMTP transaction, if not the message headers) and will not deliver to a syntactically invalid address. So regarding a syntactically invalid email address as generally undeliverable is good practice IMO, special circumstances for weird mail setups notwithstanding. All dogma is stupid.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: About validating mail id by JavaFan (Canon) on Feb 03, 2010 at 16:26 UTC
The section of the RFC you point at defines the grammar for `addr-spec`. I guess it depends on whether you call an `addr-spec`, or an `address` an "email address". It seem you do the former, I do the latter. I consider "Foo bar" <foo.bar@example.com> to be an email address. The RFC itself doesn't mention the word "email" earlier than `Appendix C. Acknowledgements`	[reply]


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