Question

Possible Duplicate:
Best practices for validating email address in Objective-C on iOS 2.0?

I am developing an iPhone application where I need the user to give his email address at login.

What is the best way to check if an email address is a valid email address?

Answer 1

Good cocoa function:

-(BOOL) NSStringIsValidEmail:(NSString *)checkString
{
   BOOL stricterFilter = NO; // Discussion http://blog.logichigh.com/2010/09/02/validating-an-e-mail-address/
   NSString *stricterFilterString = @"^[A-Z0-9a-z\\._%+-]+@([A-Za-z0-9-]+\\.)+[A-Za-z]{2,4}$";
   NSString *laxString = @"^.+@([A-Za-z0-9-]+\\.)+[A-Za-z]{2}[A-Za-z]*$";
   NSString *emailRegex = stricterFilter ? stricterFilterString : laxString;
   NSPredicate *emailTest = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF MATCHES %@", emailRegex];
   return [emailTest evaluateWithObject:checkString];
}

Discussion on Lax vs. Strict – http://blog.logichigh.com/2010/09/02/validating-an-e-mail-address/

And because categories are just better, you could also add an interface:

@interface NSString (emailValidation) 
  - (BOOL)isValidEmail;
@end

Implement

@implementation NSString (emailValidation)
-(BOOL)isValidEmail
{
  BOOL stricterFilter = NO; // Discussion http://blog.logichigh.com/2010/09/02/validating-an-e-mail-address/
  NSString *stricterFilterString = @"^[A-Z0-9a-z\\._%+-]+@([A-Za-z0-9-]+\\.)+[A-Za-z]{2,4}$";
  NSString *laxString = @"^.+@([A-Za-z0-9-]+\\.)+[A-Za-z]{2}[A-Za-z]*$";
  NSString *emailRegex = stricterFilter ? stricterFilterString : laxString;
  NSPredicate *emailTest = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF MATCHES %@", emailRegex];
  return [emailTest evaluateWithObject:self];
}
@end

And then utilize:

if([@"[e-mail]" isValidEmail]) { /* True */ }
if([@"InvalidEmail@notreallyemailbecausenosuffix" isValidEmail]) { /* False */ }