On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 09:12:16PM +0300, Andrus wrote: > I want to select the email addresses which are not valid: > > do not contain exactly one @ character, > contain ; > < " ' , characters or spaces etc. The rules that define a valid email address are more complex than most people realize, and even if an address is syntactically valid that doesn't mean it's valid in the sense that you can deliver mail to it. Whatever method you end up using, be sure to understand its limitations. One possibility would be to write a plperlu function that uses the Email::Valid module. Here's a trivial example; see the Email::Valid documentation to learn about its full capabilities: CREATE FUNCTION is_valid_email(text) RETURNS boolean AS $$ use Email::Valid; return Email::Valid->address($_[0]) ? "true" : "false"; $$ LANGUAGE plperlu IMMUTABLE STRICT; You could then do something like: SELECT * FROM foo WHERE NOT is_valid_email(email_address); Again, be aware that passing this or any other test doesn't necessarily mean that an address is truly valid -- it's just an attempt to identify addresses that are obviously bogus. -- Michael Fuhr ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq