MX, DNS, SMTP - Email Verify

Report · May 06, 2009

Can anyone point me in the direction to some code I can use to verify an email address?

I have seen so many examples that use php and .net which do not seem to work on a windows hosted server.

We have a small site that requires a valid email address to enter. Instead of letting them enter anything, we want to verify first.

TIA
Terry

Report · May 06, 2009

This function should do the trick for you:

</cfinvoke>

</cfif>

</cffunction>

It uses the ValidateEmail web service at WebServiceX.net to check if an email address exists. I tested with several emails, mixing in private domains (mysite.com) with public email services (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) and, in all cases, I got the correct response back.

I initially placed this function in a CFC called Email Checker and called it from the following script to test:

emailChecker = createObject( "component", "path.to.my.cfc.EmailChecker" );

</cfscript>

</cfsilent>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<head>

<title>Email Checker Test Page</title>

</head>

<body>

<p><cfoutput>#emailChecker.runEmailCheck( 'someemail@email.com' )#</cfoutput></p>

</body>

</html>

Hope that helps!

Report · May 06, 2009

Thank you very much.

Question: what vars do I need to change and how can I pass an email address for verification?

TIA
Terry

Report · May 06, 2009

Hi, Terry,

Go ahead and try this one. It's probably easier to use a straight function than a CFC!

/**

* Verifies the existence of an email address by checking the provided email address against the ValidateEmail web service.

*

* @param emailaddress string containing the email address to test

* @return boolean

*/

function verifyEmail( emailaddress )

{

var emailStatus = false;

var validationStatus = "";

var ws = createObject( "webservice", "http://www.webservicex.net/ValidateEmail.asmx?wsdl" );

validationStatus = ws.IsValidEmail( Email=#Trim(emailaddress)# );

if( Trim( validationStatus ) is "YES" )

{

emailStatus = true;

}

return emailStatus;

}

</cfscript>

You can just throw this one in your CFML page or any other way to include in your application that you want (<cfinclude template=""/>).

In your CFML page, you can just call the function (so long as you included the function in your code):

This is good to test (just see if it's working)

<cfouput>#verifyEmail( YOUR_EMAIL_VARIABLE )#</cfoutput>

If the function above is included, you could check for a good or bad email and then act on it:

emailOk = verifyEmail( YOUR_EMAIL_VARIABLE );

</cfscript>

</cfif>

Let me know if you have any trouble with it!

Report · May 06, 2009

First I appreciate your help; very much. My lack of CF knowledge shows

All code you provided, I put in testmail.cfm

I put the cfscript code within the HEAD tags and the rest in the body.

I get this error: Invalid token @ found on line............etc.... My guess is it is referring to the cfoutput that contains my email address.

<cfoutput>#verifyEmail( tmergl@mydomain.net )#</cfoutput>

I know I'm missing something here, sorry.

TIA

Terry

NOTE: I think the '' was missing. I got a TRUE response YEAHHHH..... Next question. Can I use this code with a simple form?

Enter email address click here to verify? I guess I could just insert #FORM.email# where my email address is now correct?

Report · May 06, 2009

Thank you very much. It is working and returning true or false.

I assume that I can have a page ie: testmail.cfm where the user enters their email address for verification.

I can send it to verify.cfm to get a true or false reply.

Question: how would you suggest sending them to a page based on the results?

If the response is true: goto register.cfm if is false, return them to testmail.cfm?

Does that make sense? What I'm shooting for is this: user enters valid email address. If TRUE then send user to registration page.

IF False, make them enter it again.

TIA
Terry

PS: You just helped me in minutes, what I have been googling for days.

Report · May 06, 2009

Hi, Terry,

I'm very glad to know this was able to help you. Thanks!

I've attached four files for you -- rename all from .txt to .cfm before trying to run them! It's a very, very basic skeleton, one that could take myriad forms, of how this process could play out in an application.

To test it out, place all three files in a directory (keep them together) on your development web server. Then, just open email_form.txt (.cfm) in your browser and try it out. I gave it a quick test on both CF 8 and Railo 3.1, but you should be good to go with CF 6 and 7 as well (not sure what version your using).

Hopefully it'll help get you rolling!

Cheers,

Craig

Report · May 07, 2009

Thanks Craig.

Going to try and test that out today.

I appreciate it very much and will let you know how it goes.

TIA
Terry

Report · May 07, 2009

You are welcome! Do let me know if you hit a snag with it (I have a chill end to my week for once ).

MX, DNS, SMTP - Email Verify

1 Correct answer