php email address validation not working? - php

Question

Hey guys,
I know there are a lot better ways to send email with PHP. However, for this purpose the easiest solution is perfect. Only thing: I can't find out why, my validation is not working!
I get the email address, however the validation is not working, I'm able to send a completely empty form. Any ideas?
<?php
//Email
$Name = Trim(stripslashes($_POST['author']));
$EmailFrom = Trim(stripslashes($_POST['email']));
$Subject = Trim(stripslashes($_POST['subject']));
$Comment = Trim(stripslashes($_POST['comment']));
$EmailTo = "myemail#address.com";
/*$Name = "Some Name";
$EmailFrom = "test#test.com";
$Subject = "Test";
$Comment = "Why is the validation not working, don't get it?";
$EmailTo = "myemail#address.com";*/
/*echo $Name . " length: " . strlen($Name) . "<br/>";
echo $EmailFrom . " length: " . strlen($EmailFrom) . "<br/>";
echo $Subject . " length: " . strlen($Subject) . "<br/>";
echo $Comment . " length: " . strlen($Comment) . "<br/>";
echo $EmailTo . " length: " . strlen($EmailTo) . "<br/>";*/
//***************************
//Validation
//***************************
$validationOK=true;
if ($Name == "") $validationOK=false;
if (isValidEmail($EmailFrom) == 0) $validationOK=false;
if ($Subject == "") $validationOK=false;
if ($Comment == "") $validationOK=false;
function isValidEmail( $email = null ) {
return preg_match( "/^[\d\w\/+!=#|$?%{^&}*`'~-][\d\w\/\.+!=#|$?%{^&}*`'~-]*#[A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9.-]{1,61}[A-Z0-9]\.[A-Z]{2,6}$/ix", $email );
}
if (!$validationOK) {
print "error";
}
//***************************
//Order
//***************************
$Body = "Contactform";
$Body .= "\n\n";
$Body .= $Comment;
// Email Headers with UTF-8 encoding
$email_header = "From: " . $EmailFrom . "\r\n";
$email_header .= "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\r\n";
$email_header .= "Reply-To: " . $EmailFrom . " \r\n";
// send email
$success = mail($EmailTo, $Subject, $Body, $email_header);
//***************************
//Success or Error
//***************************
if ($success){
print "success";
}
else{
print "error";
}
?>

Answer 1

you need to return after the condition
if (!$validationOK) {
print "error";
// return or exit
}
dont continue to send mail

Answer 2

You don't end your script after printing "error". You should end the script or make some other change so it won't be sent on error. For example:
if (!$validationOK) {
print "error";
exit;
}

Answer 3

You're printing the word error if $validationOK is false but you're not halting the script at that point so php continues to process the commands after it.
Try the following
if (!$validationOK) {
print "error";
exit();
}

Answer 4

This code:
if (!$validationOK) {
print "error";
}
does not keep your program from sending a mail, it just prints error message.

Answer 5

Don't write your own email validation function when there's tried and tested free software to do it for you.
You are welcome to use my free PHP function is_email() to validate addresses. It's available to download [here][1].
It will ensure that an address is fully RFC 5321 compliant. It can optionally also check whether the domain actually exists and has an MX record.
You shouldn't rely on a validator to tell you whether a user's email address actually exists: some ISPs give out non-compliant addresses to their users, particularly in countries which don't use the Latin alphabet. More in my essay about email validation here: [http://isemail.info/about][2].