How to Validate Email Addresses with Regular Expressions

When collecting user input via forms, it's crucial to ensure that email addresses provided are valid. Regular expressions (regex) offer a convenient way to perform this validation. However, verifying the syntax alone is insufficient.

Syntax Validation

To perform basic syntax validation, the following regex pattern can be used:

[^@] @[^@] \.[^@] 

This pattern checks for the following criteria:

• Exactly one "@" symbol
• At least one "." after the "@" symbol

Full Regex Validation

For a more comprehensive validation, refer to the linked question provided in the answer.

Implementing the Regex in Python

To utilize this validation in Python, import the re module and use either the match() or fullmatch() method:

import re

if not re.match(r"... regex here ...", email):
  # Invalid email address

Other Options

While regex validation can be effective, it's important to note its limitations. For more robust validation, consider using the validate_email package, which verifies the existence of the email address by contacting the SMTP server. However, this method still doesn't guarantee ownership or accuracy of the address.