>>But given that an email address is only useful if it is valid, you need to at very least use a regex validation (this is true even for the 99% that only have one address.)
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>Only one caveat - regex on e-mail addresses - "thar be dragons!" - The rules around valid e-mail addresses are really complex. You want to err on the side of just basic sanity checking (has some text before the @, some text after the @ that includes a period); anything more probably won't work and you'll "fail" a perfectly valid e-mail address.
Completely agree. And being picky about no periods before the @ (as some website validators seem to do) makes it choke on joe.blow@gmail.com
But a regex match will at least determine the basics and if you know there is only one address to check in the column at least it simplifies that part.
Dan Goodwin has a whole lot of stuff that culls his PAC lists by using a webservice or something to check the domains are valid but I suspect that is just showing off <s>
Of course he routinely deals with 15 million records at a time.
Actually most useful for manual data entry so they don't lose contact with a donor because of a typo when the data is entered.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
