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Overview
Installation
Usage
Testing
Security
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Overview

Laravel Mailbox Layer is a lightweight wrapper Laravel package that can be used for validating email addresses via the Mailbox Layer API. The package supports caching so that you can start validating email addresses instantly.

Installation

Requirements

The package has been developed and tested to work with the following minimum requirements:

PHP 7.3
Laravel 7

Install the Package

You can install the package via Composer:

composer require ashallendesign/laravel-mailboxlayer

Publish the Config

You can then publish the package's config file (so that you can make changes to them) by using the following command:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Providers\MailboxLayerProvider"

Getting Your Mailbox Layer API Key

To use this package and interact with the Mailbox Layer API, you'll need to register on the Mailbox Layer API website and get your API key. Once you have the key, you can set it in your .env file as shown below:

MAILBOX_LAYER_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

Usage

Methods

Validating One Email Address

To validate a single email address, you can use the check() method that is provided in the package. This method returns a ValidationResult object.

The example below shows how to validate a single email address:

use AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer;

$mailboxLayer = new MailboxLayer('api-key-here');
$validationResult = $mailboxLayer->check('example@domain.com');

Validating Multiple Email Addresses

To validate multiple email addresses, you can use the checkMany() method that is provided in the package. This method returns a Collection of ValidationResult objects.

The example below shows how to validate multiple email addresses:

use AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer;

$mailboxLayer = new MailboxLayer('api-key-here');
$validationResults = $mailboxLayer->checkMany(['example@domain.com', 'test@test.com']);

Facade

If you prefer to use facades in Laravel, you can choose to use the provided Mailbox Layer facade instead of instantiating the AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer class manually.

The example below shows an example of how you could use the facade to validate an email address:

use MailboxLayer;
    
return MailboxLayer::check('example@domain.com');

Available Validation Result Properties

Field	Description
email	The email address that the validation was carried out on.
didYouMean	A suggested email address in case a typo was detected.
user	The local part of the email address. Example: 'mail' in 'mail@ashallendesign.co.uk'.
domain	The domain part of the email address. Example: 'ashallendesign.co.uk' in 'mail@ashallendesign.co.uk'.
formatValid	Whether or not the syntax of the requested email is valid.
mxFound	Whether or not the MX records for the requested domain could be found.
smtpCheck	Whether or not the SMTP check of the requested email address succeeded.
catchAll	Whether or not the requested email address is found to be part of a catch-all mailbox.
role	Whether or not the requested email is a role email address. Example: 'support@ashallendesign.co.uk'.
disposable	Whether or not the requested email is disposable. Example: 'hello@mailinator.com'.
free	Whether or not the requested email is a free email address.
score	A score between 0 and 1 reflecting the quality and deliverability of the requested email address.
validatedAt	A `Carbon` object containing the date and time that the original validation API request was made.

Caching

Caching Validation Results

There might be times when you want to cache the validation results for an email. This can have significant performance benefits for if you try to validate the email again, due to the fact that the results will be fetched from the cache rather than from a new API request.

As an example, if you were importing a CSV containing email addresses, you might want to validate each of the addresses. However, if the CSV contains some duplicated email addresses, it could lead to unnecessary API calls being made. So, by using the caching, each unique address would only be fetched once from the API. To do this, you can use the shouldCache() method.

Using caching is recommended as it reduces the chances of you reaching the monthly request limits or rate limits that are used by Mailbox Layer. Read more about the API limits here.

The example below shows how to cache the validation results:

use AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer;

$mailboxLayer = new MailboxLayer('api-key-here');

// Result fetched from the API.
$validationResults = $mailboxLayer->shouldCache()->check('example@domain.com');

// Result fetched from the cache.
$validationResults = $mailboxLayer->shouldCache()->check('example@domain.com');

Busting the Cached Validation Results

By default, the package will always try to fetch the validation results from the cache before trying to fetch them via the API. As mentioned before, this can lead to multiple performance benefits.

However, there may be times that you want to ignore the cached results and make a new request to the API. As an example, you might have a cached validation result that is over 6 months old and could possibly be outdated or inaccurate, so it's likely that you want to update the validation data and ensure it is correct. To do this, you can use the fresh() method.

The example below shows how to fetch a new validation result:

use AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer;

$mailboxLayer = new MailboxLayer('api-key-here');

$validationResults = $mailboxLayer->fresh()->check('example@domain.com');

Options

Using HTTPS

By default, all the API requests are made using HTTPS. However, the Mailbox Layer API allows for requests to be made using HTTP if needed. This can be particularly useful when working in a local, development environment. To use HTTP when making the API requests, you can use the withHttps() method.

Please note, it is not recommended making the requests over HTTP in a live, production environment!

The example below shows how to make the requests using HTTP rather than HTTPS:

use AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer;

$mailboxLayer = new MailboxLayer('api-key-here');

$validationResults = $mailboxLayer->withHttps(false)->check('example@domain.com');

Running an SMTP Check

By default, all the API requests will run an SMTP check on the email address. Running this check can improve the accuracy of the results and give better results. However, according to Mailbox Layer, running this checks take up around 75% of the API's entire response time.

So, you can reduce the overall runtime before preventing the SMTP check from running by using the withSmtpCheck() method.

The example below shows how to validate an email address without running an SMTP check:

use AshAllenDesign\MailboxLayer\Classes\MailboxLayer;

$mailboxLayer = new MailboxLayer('api-key-here');

$validationResults = $mailboxLayer->withSmtpCheck(false)->check('example@domain.com');

Read more about the SMTP check in the Mailbox Layer API docs.

Testing

vendor/bin/phpunit

Security

If you find any security related issues, please contact me directly at mail@ashallendesign.co.uk to report it.

Contribution

If you wish to make any changes or improvements to the package, feel free to make a pull request.

To contribute to this library, please use the following guidelines before submitting your pull request:

Write tests for any new functions that are added. If you are updating existing code, make sure that the existing tests pass and write more if needed.
Follow PSR-2 coding standards.
Make all pull requests to the master branch.

ashallendesign / laravel-mailboxlayer

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