From: Sam Roberts <sroberts@...>
Date: 2003-01-27T08:23:07+09:00
Subject: Re: common regular expressions

Quoteing dcarrera@math.umd.edu, on Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 06:03:31AM +0900:
> On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 05:53:53AM +0900, Mike Campbell wrote:
> > > - valid email addresses
> > To be strictly pedantic, I don't think there is such a thing.
> 
> Yes, there is actually.  Email is a strict protocol, just like FTP and 
> others.  However, there's so much flexibility in valid email addresses 
> that you probably want to stick to common email addresses.

I think Mikes referring to a perl conversation about validity,
in which there was some ambiguity in what people mean by valid.

The syntax is completely described, but some people mean by "valid
email address" an email address you can actually send mail to, which
involves doing stuff like making sure the domain name exists and
is reachable. That kind of validity is pretty much impossible to
check, without actually sending a mail and getting a reply!

Cheers,
Sam