How to create email address generator with Ruby?

Question

  def emails
    i = 0
    number = rand(252...4350)

    males = ["tom", "jack", "adam"]
    females = ["elizabeth", "rose", "juliet"]

    surnameMales = ["oak", "yew", "timber"]
    surnameFemales = ["rosewelth", "gates", "jobs"]

    providers = ["gmail.com", "hotmail.com", "yahoo.com"]

    while i <= 100 do
      @addresses << 
    end
  end

What I want to do is pick a random number, name, surname and provider and put them all together + attach a random number at the end of the surname so that it looks, for example, like this: rose.gates643@gmail.com, but kind of got stuck at the point where I have to put the whole thing together. As you can probably tell, I want to create a 100 random emails for testing purposes.

Can you please point me out how I could do what I have intended to do with Ruby?

For testing what? You're going to generate email addresses in only one of a multitude of formats. The list of acceptable formats is a lot longer than most people realize, which makes it hard to create a validator that is worth anything. If you just need the one form of "user@host.domain", then sure, your code will work. If you need to test an email gateway or a validator, then no, it won't. — the Tin Man, Jan 07 '15 at 18:48
@theTinMan I needed to generate some content to show my client how emails would look like in a given part of a website. I wanted to make them as realistic looking as possible, therefor I did it this way. Basically testing wasn't the right way to call it I guess, more like testing "will it work out". ;) Also I didn't use `Faker` due to the need to localize those emails. — Xeen, Jan 08 '15 at 06:23

score 11 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 07 '15 at 16:31

11

Is your goal to do this as an exercise or is this just something you're trying to get done? If it's the latter, install the faker gem and just use it:

Faker::Internet.email #=> "kirsten.greenholt@corkeryfisher.info"

For 100:

100.times.map { Faker::Internet.email }

answered Jan 07 '15 at 16:31

Nick Veys

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Faker uses a set of domains that can actually be real domains, so make sure you don't use them in case where you might send an email. – Carson Cole Oct 08 '19 at 14:57

Henrik Andersson · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-07T16:35:51.927

3

Use a combination of string interpolation and Array#sample.

"#{females.sample}.#{surnameFemales.sample}#{rand(252...4350)}@#{providers.sample}"
>> "rose.rosewelth3266@gmail.com"

edited Jan 07 '15 at 16:35

answered Jan 07 '15 at 16:30

Henrik Andersson

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score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

There's a couple ways to join strings in Ruby. Inline placeholders seems to make the most sense here:

@addressess << "#{ males.sample }.#{ surnameMales.sample }#{ number }@#{ providers.sample }"

In a double-quoted string, #{ expr } is evaluated and subbed inline. "#{ 1 + 1 }" outputs "2", for example.

Also a couple ways you can distinguish male or female — for example, checking if a random number is even or odd:

name = if rand(1..100) % 2 == 0 ? "#{ males.sample }.#{ surnameMales.sample }" : "#{ females.sample }.#{ surnameFemales.sample }"
@addresses << "#{ name }#{ number }@#{ providers.sample }"

How to create email address generator with Ruby?

3 Answers3