Regex validation of email addresses according to RFC5321/RFC5322

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Nestable comments make the grammar for email-addresses irregular (context-free). If you preclude comments however, the resulting grammar is regular. The primary definition allows for (folding) whitespace between lexical tokens (e.g. a @ b.com). Removing all folding whitespace results in a canonical form.

This is the regex for canonical email addresses according to RFC 5322 (precluding comments):

([!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~-]+(\.[!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~-]+)*|"([]!#-[^-~ \t]|(\\[\t -~]))+")@([!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~-]+(\.[!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~-]+)*|\[[\t -Z^-~]*])

If you need to accept folding whitespace, then this is the regular expression for email addresses according to RFC 5322 (precluding comments):

((([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?[-!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~]+(\.[-!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~]+)*(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?|(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?"(((([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?([]!#-[^-~]|(\\[\t -~])))+(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?|(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?)"(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?)@((([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?[-!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~]+(\.[-!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~]+)*(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?|(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?\[((([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?[!-Z^-~])*(([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?](([\t ]*\r\n)?[\t ]+)?)

Valid email addresses are further restricted in RFC 5321 (SMTP). It basically leaves alone the part before the @-sign, but accepts only host names or address literals after the @-sign. (“—.—” is a valid dot-atom, but not a valid host name and “[…]” is a valid domain literal, but not a valid address literal.)

The grammar presented in RFC 5321 is too lenient when it comes to both host names and IP addresses. I took the liberty of “correcting” the rules in question, using this draft and RFC 1034 (section 3.5) as guidelines. Here’s the resulting regex.

([!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~-]+(\.[!#-'*+/-9=?A-Z^-~-]+)*|"([]!#-[^-~ \t]|(\\[\t -~]))+")@([0-9A-Za-z]([0-9A-Za-z-]{0,61}[0-9A-Za-z])?(\.[0-9A-Za-z]([0-9A-Za-z-]{0,61}[0-9A-Za-z])?)*|\[((25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])(\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])){3}|IPv6:((((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){6}|::((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){5}|[0-9A-Fa-f]{0,4}::((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){4}|(((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):)?(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}))?::((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){3}|(((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){0,2}(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}))?::((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){2}|(((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){0,3}(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}))?::(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):|(((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){0,4}(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}))?::)((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3})|(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])(\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])){3})|(((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){0,5}(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}))?::(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3})|(((0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}):){0,6}(0|[1-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f]{0,3}))?::)|(?!IPv6:)[0-9A-Za-z-]*[0-9A-Za-z]:[!-Z^-~]+)])

All regexes are POSIX EREs. The last one uses a negative lookahead. See here for the derivations of the regular expressions.

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