/ 
Mail-CheckUser-1.15
River stage zero No dependents
/ Mail::CheckUser

NAME

Mail::CheckUser - check email addresses for validity

SYNOPSIS

use Mail::CheckUser qw(check_email);
my $ok = check_email($email_addr);

use Mail::CheckUser qw(:constants check_email last_check)
my $ok = check_email($email_addr);
print "DNS timeout\n"
    if last_check()->{code} == CU_DNS_TIMEOUT;

use Mail::CheckUser;
my $res = Mail::CheckUser::check_email($email_addr);

DESCRIPTION

This Perl module provides routines for checking validity of email address.

It makes several checks:

  1. It checks the syntax of an email address.

  2. It checks if there any MX records or A records for the domain part of the email address.

  3. It tries to connect to an email server directly via SMTP to check if mailbox is valid. Old versions of this module performed this check via the VRFY command. Now the module uses another check; it uses a combination of MAIL and RCPT commands which simulates sending an email. It can detect bad mailboxes in many cases. For example, hotmail.com mailboxes can be verified with the MAIL/RCPT check.

If is possible to turn off some or all networking checks (items 2 and 3). See "GLOBAL VARIABLES".

This module was designed with CGIs (or any other dynamic Web content programmed with Perl) in mind. Usually it is required to quickly check e-mail addresses in forms. If the check can't be finished in reasonable time, the e-mail address should be treated as valid. This is the default policy. By default if a timeout happens the result of the check is treated as positive. This behavior can be overridden - see "GLOBAL VARIABLES".

IMPORTANT WARNING

In many cases there is no way to detect the validity of email addresses with network checks. For example, non-monolithic mail servers (such as Postfix and qmail) often report that a user exists even if it is not so. This is because in cases where the work of the server is split among many components, the SMTP server may not know how to check for the existence of a particular user. Systems like these will reject mail to unknown users, but they do so after the SMTP conversation. In cases like these, the only absolutely sure way to determine whether or not a user exists is to actually send a mail and wait to see if a bounce messages comes back. Obviously, this is not a workable strategy for this module. Does it mean that the network checks in this module are useless? No. For one thing, just the DNS checks go a long way towards weeding out mistyped domain parts. Also, there are still many SMTP servers that will reject a bad address during the SMTP conversation. Because of this, it's still a useful part of checking for a valid email address. And this module was designed such that if there is exists possibility (however small) that the email address is valid, it will be treated as valid by this module.

Another warning is about $Mail::CheckUser::Treat_Timeout_As_Fail global variable. Use it carefully - if it is set to true then some valid email addresses can be treated as bad simply because an SMTP or DNS server responds slowly.

EXAMPLE

This simple script checks if email address blabla@foo.bar is valid.

    use Mail::CheckUser qw(check_email last_check);

    my $email = 'blabla@foo.bar';

    if(check_email($email)) {
        print "E-mail address <$email> is OK\n";
    } else {
	print "E-mail address <$email> isn't valid: ",
              last_check()->{reason}, "\n";
    }

SUBROUTINES

$ok = check_email($email)

Validates email address $email. Return true if email address is valid and false otherwise.

$res = last_check()

Returns detailed result of last check made with check_email as hash reference:

{ ok => OK, code => CODE, reason => REASON }
OK

True if last checked email address is valid. False otherwise.

CODE

A number which describes result of last check. See "CONSTANTS".

REASON

A string which describes result of last check.

CONSTANTS

Constants used by last_check to describe result of last check can be exported with

use Mail::CheckUser qw(:constants)

List of all defined constants:

CU_OK

Check is successful.

CU_BAD_SYNTAX

Bad syntax of email address.

CU_UNKNOWN_DOMAIN

Mail domain mentioned in email address is unknown.

CU_DNS_TIMEOUT

Timeout has happen during DNS checks.

CU_UNKNOWN_USER

User is unknown on SMTP server.

CU_SMTP_TIMEOUT

Timeout has happen during SMTP checks.

CU_SMTP_UNREACHABLE

All SMTP servers for mail domain were found unreachable during SMTP checks.

GLOBAL VARIABLES

It is possible to configure check_email using the global variables listed below.

$Mail::CheckUser::Skip_Network_Checks

If true then do only syntax checks. By default it is false.

$Mail::CheckUser::Skip_SMTP_Checks

If it is true then do not try to connect to mail server to check if a user exists. If this is true, and $Mail::CheckUser::Skip_Network_Checks is false, only syntax and DNS checks are performed. By default it is false.

$Mail::CheckUser::Skip_SYN

If it is true module uses Net::Ping to determine remote reachability of SMTP servers before doing SMTP checks. By default it is true.

$Mail::CheckUser::Sender_Addr

MAIL/RCPT check needs an email address to use as the 'From' address when performing its checks. The default value is check@user.com.

$Mail::CheckUser::Helo_Domain

Sender domain used in HELO SMTP command. If undef Net::SMTP is allowed to use its default value. By default it is undef.

Mail::CheckUser::Timeout

Timeout in seconds for network checks. By default it is 60.

$Mail::CheckUser::Treat_Timeout_As_Fail

If it is true Mail::CheckUser treats checks that time out as failed. By default it is false.

$Mail::CheckUser::Debug

If it is true then enable debug output on STDERR. By default it is false.

AUTHOR

Ilya Martynov ilya@martynov.org

Module maintained at Source Forge ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/mail-checkuser/ ).

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1999-2002 by Ilya Martynov. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

perl(1).