Regex to validate a semi-colon separated list of emails?

Question

I have the following c# extension method for validating an email address. The regex came from Microsoft on their 'How to: Verify that Strings Are in Valid Email Format' page.

I need to improve this method to be able to handle a semi-colon separated list of emails. A valid example string could be as badly formatted as: ";; ; ; xxx.sss.xxx ; ;; xxx.sss.xxx;"

    /// <summary>
    /// Validates the string is an Email Address...
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="emailAddress"></param>
    /// <returns>bool</returns>
    public static bool IsValidEmailAddress(this string emailAddress)
    {
        var valid = true;
        var isnotblank = false;

        var email = emailAddress.Trim();
        if (email.Length > 0)
        {
            isnotblank = true;
            valid = Regex.IsMatch(email, @"^(?("")("".+?(?<!\\)""@)|(([0-9a-z]((\.(?!\.))|[-!#\$%&'\*\+/=\?\^`\{\}\|~\w])*)(?<=[0-9a-z])@))" +
            @"(?(\[)(\[(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\])|(([0-9a-z][-\w]*[0-9a-z]*\.)+[a-z0-9][\-a-z0-9]{0,22}[a-z0-9]))$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
        }

        return (valid && isnotblank);
    }

Answer 1

Microsoft's regex does a pretty good job. However, it doesn't catch a few strange scenarios and a number of special characters which are valid for email. I'll give you a different regex. Choose to use it or not is your prerogative.

I would separate the concerns by having one extension method which validates an email address and another which validates the list. Do a .trim() on each email before passing it to the email validation method. So, something like this:

    /// <summary>
    /// Validates the string is an Email Address...
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="emailAddress"></param>
    /// <returns>bool</returns>
    public static bool IsValidEmailAddress(this string emailAddress)
    {
        var valid = true;
        var isnotblank = false;

        var email = emailAddress.Trim();
        if (email.Length > 0)
        {
            // Email Address Cannot start with period.
            // Name portion must be at least one character
            // In the Name, valid characters are:  a-z 0-9 ! # _ % & ' " = ` { } ~ - + * ? ^ | / $
            // Cannot have period immediately before @ sign.
            // Cannot have two @ symbols
            // In the domain, valid characters are: a-z 0-9 - .
            // Domain cannot start with a period or dash
            // Domain name must be 2 characters.. not more than 256 characters
            // Domain cannot end with a period or dash.
            // Domain must contain a period
            isnotblank = true;
            valid = Regex.IsMatch(email, @"\A([\w!#%&'""=`{}~\.\-\+\*\?\^\|\/\$])+@{1}\w+([-.]\w+)*\.\w+([-.]\w+)*\z", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase) &&
                !email.StartsWith("-") &&
                !email.StartsWith(".") &&
                !email.EndsWith(".") && 
                !email.Contains("..") &&
                !email.Contains(".@") &&
                !email.Contains("@.");
        }

        return (valid && isnotblank);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Validates the string is an Email Address or a delimited string of email addresses...
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="emailAddress"></param>
    /// <returns>bool</returns>
    public static bool IsValidEmailAddressDelimitedList(this string emailAddress, char delimiter = ';')
    {
        var valid = true;
        var isnotblank = false;

        string[] emails = emailAddress.Split(delimiter);

        foreach (string e in emails)
        {
            var email = e.Trim();
            if (email.Length > 0 && valid) // if valid == false, no reason to continue checking
            {
                isnotblank = true;
                if (!email.IsValidEmailAddress())
                {
                    valid = false;
                }
            }
        }
        return (valid && isnotblank);
    }