# EmailAddress

`Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` allows you to validate an email address. The validator first splits the email address on local-part @ hostname and attempts to match these against known specifications for email addresses and hostnames.

## Basic usage

A basic example of usage is below:

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress();
    if ($validator->isValid($email)) {
        // email appears to be valid
    } else {
        // email is invalid; print the reasons
        foreach ($validator->getMessages() as $message) {
            echo "$message\n";
        }
    }

This will match the email address `$email` and on failure populate `$validator->getMessages()` with useful error messages.

## Options for validating Email Addresses

`Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` supports several options which can either be set at initiation, by giving an array with the related options, or afterwards, by using `setOptions()`. The following options are supported:

- allow: Defines which type of domain names are accepted. This option is used in conjunction with the hostname option to set the hostname validator. For more informations about possible values of this option, look at Hostname and possible `ALLOW`* constants. This option defaults to `ALLOW_DNS`.

- deep: Defines if the servers MX records should be verified by a deep check. When this option is set to `TRUE` then additionally to MX records also the A, A6 and `AAAA` records are used to verify if the server accepts emails. This option defaults to `FALSE`.

- domain: Defines if the domain part should be checked. When this option is set to `FALSE`, then only the local part of the email address will be checked. In this case the hostname validator will not be called. This option defaults to `TRUE`.

- hostname: Sets the hostname validator with which the domain part of the email address will be validated.

- mx: Defines if the MX records from the server should be detected. If this option is defined to `TRUE` then the MX records are used to verify if the server accepts emails. This option defaults to `FALSE`.

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress();
    $validator->setOptions(array('domain' => false));

## Complex local parts

`Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` will match any valid email address according to RFC2822. For example, valid emails include `bob@domain.com`, `bob+jones@domain.us`, `"bob@jones"@domain.com` and `"bob jones"@domain.com`

Some obsolete email formats will not currently validate (e.g. carriage returns or a "\" character in an email address).

## Validating only the local part

If you need `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` to check only the local part of an email address, and want to disable validation of the hostname, you can set the domain option to `FALSE`. This forces `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` not to validate the hostname part of the email address.

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress();
    $validator->setOptions(array('domain' => FALSE));

## Validating different types of hostnames

The hostname part of an email address is validated against `Zend_Validate_Hostname`. By default only DNS hostnames of the form `domain.com` are accepted, though if you wish you can accept IP addresses and Local hostnames too.

To do this you need to instantiate `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` passing a parameter to indicate the type of hostnames you want to accept. More details are included in `Zend_Validate_Hostname`, though an example of how to accept both DNS and Local hostnames appears below:

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress(
                        Zend_Validate_Hostname::ALLOW_DNS |
                        Zend_Validate_Hostname::ALLOW_LOCAL);
    if ($validator->isValid($email)) {
        // email appears to be valid
    } else {
        // email is invalid; print the reasons
        foreach ($validator->getMessages() as $message) {
            echo "$message\n";
        }
    }

## Checking if the hostname actually accepts email

Just because an email address is in the correct format, it doesn't necessarily mean that email address actually exists. To help solve this problem, you can use MX validation to check whether an MX (email) entry exists in the DNS record for the email's hostname. This tells you that the hostname accepts email, but doesn't tell you the exact email address itself is valid.

MX checking is not enabled by default. To enable MX checking you can pass a second parameter to the `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` constructor.

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress(
        array(
            'allow' => Zend_Validate_Hostname::ALLOW_DNS,
            'mx'    => true
        )
    );

### MX Check under Windows

Within Windows environments MX checking is only available when PHP 5.3 or above is used. Below PHP 5.3 MX checking will not be used even if it's activated within the options.

Alternatively you can either pass `TRUE` or `FALSE` to `$validator->setValidateMx()` to enable or disable MX validation.

By enabling this setting network functions will be used to check for the presence of an MX record on the hostname of the email address you wish to validate. Please be aware this will likely slow your script down.

Sometimes validation for MX records returns `FALSE`, even if emails are accepted. The reason behind this behaviour is, that servers can accept emails even if they do not provide a MX record. In this case they can provide A, A6 or `AAAA` records. To allow `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` to check also for these other records, you need to set deep MX validation. This can be done at initiation by setting the deep option or by using `setOptions()`.

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress(
        array(
            'allow' => Zend_Validate_Hostname::ALLOW_DNS,
            'mx'    => true,
            'deep'  => true
        )
    );

### Performance warning

You should be aware that enabling MX check will slow down you script because of the used network functions. Enabling deep check will slow down your script even more as it searches the given server for 3 additional types.

### Disallowed IP addresses

You should note that MX validation is only accepted for external servers. When deep MX validation is enabled, then local IP addresses like `192.168.*` or `169.254.*` are not accepted.

## Validating International Domains Names

`Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` will also match international characters that exist in some domains. This is known as International Domain Name (IDN) support. This is enabled by default, though you can disable this by changing the setting via the internal `Zend_Validate_Hostname` object that exists within `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress`.

    $validator->getHostnameValidator()->setValidateIdn(false);

More information on the usage of `setValidateIdn()` appears in the `Zend_Validate_Hostname` documentation.

Please note IDNs are only validated if you allow DNS hostnames to be validated.

## Validating Top Level Domains

By default a hostname will be checked against a list of known TLDs. This is enabled by default, though you can disable this by changing the setting via the internal `Zend_Validate_Hostname` object that exists within `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress`.

    $validator->getHostnameValidator()->setValidateTld(false);

More information on the usage of `setValidateTld()` appears in the `Zend_Validate_Hostname` documentation.

Please note TLDs are only validated if you allow DNS hostnames to be validated.

## Setting messages

`Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` makes also use of `Zend_Validate_Hostname` to check the hostname part of a given email address. As with Zend Framework 1.10 you can simply set messages for `Zend_Validate_Hostname` from within `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress`.

    $validator = new Zend_Validate_EmailAddress();
    $validator->setMessages(
        array(
            Zend_Validate_Hostname::UNKNOWN_TLD => 'I don't know the TLD you gave'
        )
    );

Before Zend Framework 1.10 you had to attach the messages to your own `Zend_Validate_Hostname`, and then set this validator within `Zend_Validate_EmailAddress` to get your own messages returned.