Setting up a form

[geordief]

I have a form on my site but there is a problem when a bad email address is entered as I cannot contact the person except by phone.Is there a way to tell the person they have put in a bad email address when they are redirected to the "thank you " page?

[Robin_reala]

Presumably you're using a server-side script to do the actual mailing? You could add a check before the mail gets sent. A regular expression should suffice - you'll find some examples in this thread on the subject [webmasterworld.com].

[jatar_k]

and Welcome to WebmasterWorld geordief

[rocknbil]

While regexps and email checks will insure the format of the email address is correct, there really is no way (that I've found!) to make sure the address is a good address. [e-mail] is a good email address format but likely goes nowhere.

[Candid India]

I agree with Robin that a regular expression would suffice as far as the format of email address needs to be valid. Putting such a check should solve much of your problem.
I am also with rocknbil as per the comment that putting a check only on validity of format can no way ensure that the email id being submitted is a valid id. However, there is some way by which we can check this last point also. While filling up the member registration forms of some major organisations we get an instant response that the email id doesn't exist (even if it is in a valid format such as [e-mail]). Not very sure how they do it, but it is feasible.

[edited by: Candid_India at 7:26 am (utc) on July 26, 2006]

[geordief]

I have decided for now to put a reminder in the page the form user is directed to after filling out the form-I call it the thankyou page.
I say "Are you sure your email address is written in correctly? Go back to the previous page if you want to doublecheck" -along with the rest of the message that was there before.
It is less technical but just as user friendly.

[kiwibrit]

A repeat input for the email address is probably best done. Most users accept it willingly, I think, on the basis that it actually helps them in the long run.

[geordief]

I see what you mean.Maybe that is better but I know that personally I always copy and paste into the 2nd box whenever I can.Can I disable copying on the page? (think I've seen that done on Copyright pages)