Neverside

Validating Email Addresses - Do they exist?

I've searched this form over, and found plenty of good ways to make sure a feild has something like an email (blahblah@thisplace.com) ... but I need a way to make sure the email actually exists.

I'm getting a little frustratted with folks putting in bogus emails (jkasdjsda@jkasdjdas.com) and I figure the least they can do is go out and creat a bogus email :P

Anyway, I searched the web and found something very, very close to what I need. ( http://coveryourasp.com/ValidateEmail.asp ... Step 3: SMTP validation ) ... but unfortunatly, I don't use ASP :\

Does anyone know how I can get a similar result using something not Window's based? I'm not actually sure what kind of script can do this (I'll assume it's a server side script) so if it helps, I'm using Apache on a Unix server.

Thanks for any information!

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Grunge
Jenn Rodriguez | qrow.com

Oops! I seem to have posted this in the wrong forum. Can an admin please move this to the script request?

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Grunge
Jenn Rodriguez | qrow.com

look for an smtp class

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http://celerondude.com

uhh, I suggest looking up fsockopen()

It's pretty much like pinging the server, if it replys then it is a valid email. They could get around it by doing something like "Me@tutorialforums.com" but many people don't think of that. Also if their mail server was down it would mess it up. But you have to crack eggs to make omelets.

Good Luck with it.

(Spoono tutorial: http://www.spoono.com/php/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=28)

Verify a User's Email Address Using PHP
By Joe Marini

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1051

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if you're using dreamweaver there's a server behavior extension for doing just this. although you wouldn't be learning from it

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Nick
Pixel-Infinity

u could use mail() send them a e-mail to the address they give then click on a validation link the in e-mail that will activate what ever they are trying to do.

for example.
they creat an account they are given a unique id and the account starts of deactivated.

in the e-maill have a link like
www.your_site.com/activate_account?user_account_id=[what ever there account id is]

they click that then it changes the account to active.

Send a confirmation e-mail is the only way to be truly sure.

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RAAAH

Or you can send them a generated-password, which they can change when they login..

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Which is a confirm email. Confirm emails are the way to go, I prefer unknown's method then sending them a password, although you should use a random string; activate=s9sd8fff9982 not activate_id=23 because then I can easily go to that without recieving the email.

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