Re: Pre-RFC discussion about adding a DNS function for Null MX handling

On Wed, 13 May 2026 09:50:00 +0000, Christian Schneider <cschneid@cschneid.com> wrote: Am I correct that this would be equivalent to the following (example.com < > http://example.com/> return empty string "" for > MX, not a dot ".")? > array_any( > dns_get_record($hostname, DNS_MX), > fn($r) => $r["target"] > ) > Hi Chris, Yes, mostly. The raw PHP value for Null MX may be an empty string, as you noted, but I would still normalize the target so the check is based on the DNS-level meaning rather than the exact value returned by dns_get_record(): array_any( dns_get_record($hostname, DNS_MX), fn($r) => rtrim($r["target"] ?? "", ".") !== "" ) I agree this can be done in userland. My point is more about API semantics: PHP already has DNS-level boolean functions, and RFC 7505 makes "has an MX record" and "has a non-null MX record" two different DNS-level statements. I also agree this should not become email deliverability validation. It should stay strictly limited to MX records. I am trying to understand whether this DNS-level distinction is worth exposing explicitly in the existing DNS API. Regards, Samuel