In this article, we are going to see how we can retrieve different information from an email address. To know regular expression basics, please see this old post.
The Email Format
Normally we have email address like sarker.shantonu@gmail.com and some time we may find sarker.shantonu+abcedd@gmail.com , but due to implementation rules , we omit the characters after+ .
So, we need to retrieve information from a valid email address. What info can be retrieve?
- Domain Name(in example gmail.com)
- User name
Retrieve with analysis
So, let’s take the complex data as sarker.shantonu+abcedd@gmail.com
In here, the domain name start from @ and then small letter words, here can be capital and numbers.
And end will be up to dot(not including). So, our regular expression will indicate a alphabet/ numeric number from beginning and end which can be one or more(to accurate 2 or more)
So, for domain name extraction, it will be @[a-zA-z0-9]{2,}
- In here max limit is not mentioned, so I keep it blank
{2,}. And[a-zA-z0-9]means, any character range a to z or A to Z or 0 to 9. - To simplify,
@[a-zA-z0-9]+will results same but+refers to 1 or more existence of the character set.
Now, we need to get the username. A username start with any of numeric or alphabetic character, ends with numeric or alphabetic character, and in between them it can contains dot(.) , Dash(-), underscore(_).
So, our regular expression will be [0-9a-zA-Z]*[-._\w]*[0-9a-zA-Z]
[0-9a-zA-Z]means any character a-z or A-Z or 0-9.*means previous charter set can be repeated 0or more time[-._\w]means it can have - or . or _ or any alphanumeric character*means previous charter set can be repeated 0or more time[0-9a-zA-Z]means any character a-z or A-Z or 0-9.
Finally
If we now, use grouping both where first group will show user name and the 2nd group domain. Then our expression will be like as below ([0-9a-zA-Z]*[-._\w]*[0-9a-zA-Z])@([a-zA-z0-9]+)
so, we have our user name and domain in separate group.
Thanks….:)