How can PHP beginners ensure that the email address input is correctly formatted with an "@" and "."?

To ensure that the email address input is correctly formatted with an "@" and ".", PHP beginners can use regular expressions to validate the input. Regular expressions can be used to check if the input contains an "@" symbol followed by a domain name with a ".". By using the preg_match function, beginners can easily validate the email address input and provide feedback to the user if the format is incorrect.

$email = $_POST['email']; // Assuming the email address input is sent via POST

if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}$/", $email)) {
    echo "Invalid email address format";
} else {
    echo "Email address is correctly formatted";
}