Best way to parse string of email addresses

Question

So i am working with some email header data, and for the to:, from:, cc:, and bcc: fields the email address(es) can be expressed in a number of different ways:

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Answer 1

There is internal System.Net.Mail.MailAddressParser class which has method ParseMultipleAddresses which does exactly what you want. You can access it directly through reflection or by calling MailMessage.To.Add method, which accepts email list string.

private static IEnumerable ParseAddress(string addresses)
{
    var mailAddressParserClass = Type.GetType("System.Net.Mail.MailAddressParser");
    var parseMultipleAddressesMethod = mailAddressParserClass.GetMethod("ParseMultipleAddresses", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Static);
    return (IList)parseMultipleAddressesMethod.Invoke(null, new object[0]);
}


    private static IEnumerable ParseAddress(string addresses)
    {
        MailMessage message = new MailMessage();
        message.To.Add(addresses);
        return new List(message.To); //new List, because we don't want to hold reference on Disposable object
    }