Unique Email Addresses

[Oclamora]

Hi there,

The system recognizes "example@gmail.com", "e.xample@gmail.com", "e.x.ample@gmail.com", "exam.ple@gmail.com", etc... as different addresses were in fact they are all the same. Is there a way, using regex or any other way, to tell the system that they are all the same?

Thanks!

[nhawk]

Dots in email addresses are legitimate on most systems.

The fact that gmail removes the dots and considers them the same email address is more of a bug than anything else.

To detect gmail addresses with dots, you can create a plugin using the 'register_addmember_process' hook. Use this PHP code to remove the dots from the gmail addresses...
$email_parts = explode('@',$vbulletin->GPC['email']);

if(stristr($email_parts[1],'gmail'))
{
$email_parts[0] = str_replace('.','',$email_parts[0]);
$whole_email = $email_parts[0] . '@' . $email_parts[1];
$userdata->set('email', $whole_email);
}

Again, don't use that for ALL email addresses because a dot in the address is allowed on most mail systems.

[Oclamora]

Hey nhawk,

Thank you for the code and the explanation!

I'm aware that the dot matters to some systems and not others; however, the vB system should feature an option to activate and deactivate things like this. This will be very helpful with reducing spams, I think.

All the best!