CODEWITHSUNDEEP
web-servicesurldnsemail-validationtld
Satwiki
Satwiki

Reputation: 95

How to validate Top Level Domain of an email address?

Let's say I have a contact form where a user can enter his email address along with his other contact details. I need to check the validity of Generic top level domain or top level domain of the email address. An example:

[email protected]

I need to check if .paris is a valid top level domain.

Please refer to this link for the list of domains available, which gives a number around 1200. Storing the domain names in a local table and searching is not an option since new domains are being introduced everyday. Please let me know if there is any web service or free API available for this, or there is any other way to validate the email address.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 3845

Answers (2)

Rob H
Rob H

Reputation: 348

There is nothing wrong with storing a list of TLDs locally when you need a quick answer for client-side validation or don't want to consume network resources for a reverse DNS lookup.

Email addresses from newer TLDs are extremely rare for most use cases. I update my list about once per year and find that it's good enough.

Upvotes: 1

Michael B
Michael B

Reputation: 12228

The simplest way to find out whether a domain exists is to check whether it has a name server.

Considering that a TLD costs around $100,000 it is very likely that every one that is purchased is in use. Also, if it doesn't have a name server, you can't send anything to it anyway.

Using dig you can run 

dig NS +short paris

which will give

h.ext.nic.fr.
d.nic.fr.
g.ext.nic.fr.
f.ext.nic.fr.

whereas 

dig NS +short adsfadfs

returns nothing.

Upvotes: 4

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