Question

I would like to let my users paste a string of emails into a text are and on submit import them into a db table.

It seem that the typical syntax for email and they way it is usually typed in TO field is:

"Fname Lname" <[e-mail]>, "Fname Lname" <[e-mail]>,

I suppose on submit I need to parse it through some loop. How do I detect the name/email pair break? Is there a way to also do some basic email validation?

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UPDATE:

I realized that sometimes the string can be slightly off, like missing a name:

Fname Lname" <[e-mail]>, [e-mail],

or even

<[e-mail]>, [e-mail],

or even

[e-mail], [e-mail],

How to make it more robust and note break if a name is missing? The email should be there all the time! Otherwise it just needs to ignore an instance and move on to the next contact. But I guess I can do that validation after the array of contacts is created…

Answer 1

I am not good in preg_match, so I tried it in another way. If your string is always in this pattern, you can try something like this:

$str = '"Fname Lname" <[e-mail]>, "Fname Lname" <[e-mail]>';

$pairs = explode( ",", $str );

foreach( $pairs as $pair ) {

  $pair = explode( "<", $pair );
  $pair['0'] = trim( str_replace( "\"", "", $pair['0'] ) );
  $pair['1'] = trim( rtrim( $pair['1'], ">" ) );

  print_r( $pair ); // Save it to database here
}

Test Here

EDIT:

(Change in input string)

$str = '"Fname Lname" <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]';

$pairs = explode( ",", $str );

foreach( $pairs as $pair ) {

  if( strpos($pair, '<') ) {

    $output = explode( "<", $pair );
    $output['0'] = trim( str_replace( "\"", "", $output['0'] ) );
    $output['1'] = trim( rtrim( $output['1'], ">" ) );

  } else {

    $output = array();
    $output['0'] = '';
    $output['1'] = $pair;

  }

  print_r($output); // Save it to database here
}

Test Here