Sorry, Randal, you're absolutely right, as I learned from this note from
perlfaq9, among others I discovered right after I posted my inquiry:
How do I check a valid mail address?
You can't, at least, not in real time. Bummer, eh?
Without sending mail to the address and seeing whether
there's a human on the other hand to answer you, you
cannot determine whether a mail address is valid. Even if
you apply the mail header standard, you can have problems,
because there are deliverable addresses that aren't
RFC-822 (the mail header standard) compliant, and
addresses that aren't deliverable which are compliant.
With that said, I still wonder why a perl program couldn't use a module
like Net::Telnet to initiate a regular SMTP dialog with the host pointed
to by the A or MX record in the user's email address. Then, it could
return the response to the RCPT command, either "ok" or "No such
recipient" or whatever the response was, and possibly enter a RSET
command, or just stop sending anything to the recipient's SMTP host and
let it time out.
I'm sure the answer to why it couldn't, or shouldn't, be done is caused
by my inadequate knowledge of email systems' and protocols. Can anyone
enlighten me on why this wouldn't be a good idea? Would initiating a
dialog with an SMTP host, then resetting it or letting it time out,
cause havoc in the email system?
Granted, this wouldn't find all the problems with email addresses, but
it would solve the problem I've been tasked to do.
Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions.
-Kevin Zembower
-----
E. Kevin Zembower
Unix Administrator
Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communications Programs
111 Market Place, Suite 310
Baltimore, MD 21202
410-659-6139
>>> Randal L. Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/18/02 09:18PM >>>
>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Zembower <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Kevin> I'm wondering if a module exists to check an email address in
real time.
No, because it can't be done, in general, as stated repeatedly here,
in FAQ lists, and in newsgroups.
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