Dev Shed Forums

**-Dman100-** · 03:40 AM

I am trying to match on a from email address in a forwarded email thread. The email can be forwarded multiple times with various types of formats of the From: email address. I only need to get the last one, but it has to be the "From:" email address.

I've tried three versions, which are close, but not quite right.

From: [^\\[]+\\[mailto:([^@]+@[^]]+)\\]
From: [^<]+<([^@]+@[^>]+)>
From: [^<]+<+mailto:+([^@]+@[^>]+)>

Thanks for any help.

**spacebar208**

Show us some examples of what you are trying to match.

**ragax**

Hi Dman100,

The email headers can vary wildly.
What would help most is if you would paste a sample email header, highlighting the line to be matched.

To see the full email with the headers, in Gmail, you select "show original" from the drop-down menu at the right of the message. In Horde, outlook, other programs, it might say "show full message", "show headers", etc.

Wishing you a fun week.

**-Dman100-**

Here are a few examples:

Code:

From: Cole, Amy [mailto:acole-rms@STERICYCLE.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 1:59 PM 
To: Sunovion O/E 
Subject: Request for RGA 

Please submit an RA for each of the attached Debit Memos. 

Thank You 

Amy Cole 
RA Associate - Retail Returns 
Stericycle 
acole-rms@stericycle.com<mailto:acole-rms@stericycle.com> 
2670 Executive Drive 
Suite A 
Indianapolis, IN 46241 
p (317) 217-6731 
f (317) 217-6761 
[image001.jpg]

this should detect: acole-rms@STERICYCLE.com

Here is another:

Code:

From: Mathai, Julia 
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 9:57 AM 
To: 'Ashley Orf' 
Subject: RE: Debit Memo # 28057 

please see the attached RAs 


Julia Mathai 
Order Management Specialist 

Direct 508-357-7826 I Fax 508-787-4191 l Email julia.mathai@sunovion.com<mailto:julia.mathai@sunovion.com> 





________________________________ 
From: Ashley Orf [mailto:returns@totalrxreturns.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 9:47 AM 
To: Mathai, Julia 
Subject: Debit Memo # 28057 

Debit Memo #28057 product was destroyed in house on 2/13/12

This one should detect: returns@totalrxreturns.com

Looking to get the last From: email address in the forwarded thread.

Does that help?

**ragax**

Yes, it helps! Thank you.

This regex will match your addresses.

Code:

(?i)mailto:\b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,6}\b

(The (?i) is a case-insensitive flag, depending on what you are using, you may have a different flag.)

In your language, you find all the matches with this regex. Then you take the last one.

Are you on php?
If so, first you define

PHP Code:


$regex = '~(?i)mailto:\b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,6}\b~';

(Note the tilde delimiters.)
Then you match everything:

PHP Code:


$found = preg_match_all($regex,$email,$matches,PREG_SET_ORDER);

Then you look at the number of matches:

PHP Code:


$size = count ($matches);

Then you display the last match:

PHP Code:


$last = $matches[$size-1][0];

If you put parentheses around the email address (between the two \b tags), then you can display it in the same way, by showing Group 1:

PHP Code:


$last = $matches[$size-1][1];

Okay, I only typed this in the window without testing. There might be a typo but it would probably be minor.

Pls let me know if this helps.

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Thread: Detect From: email address

Detect From: email address