get all URLs in a textarea

Question

Simple question. Given a text area which might have a few urls copied and pasted, I would like to parse all of them out in to an array. Don't want to replace the contents, but get all the urls in the text area in to an array using Javascript.

EDIT

http://jsfiddle.net/sujesharukil/hyEem/19/

Created a fiddle. I have it mostly working. The only issue is, it does not pick up query string parameters. May be that should have been the question.

this is what I put in the text area

www.google.com ssdfsdfasdfasdf http://someplace.com?x=sdfsdf

regex = new RegExp(/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,4}\b(\/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)?/gi);

returns two items, but no query string params for the second one.

Help will be appreciated.

What format are the URLs going to be in? Starting with http, www, something different? What is some example text that you can show the desired results on so we can help? — Walls, Mar 21 '13 at 18:30
@epascarello. I am not asking you to do my job. I asked a question. If you think you need more information, then please ask so (minus the sarcasm accompanied by it). I have added a fiddle and updated my question. Hopefully you can show your magic now and then say TADA!! — Sujesh Arukil, Mar 21 '13 at 18:54
possible duplicate of [RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags) — Lance Roberts, Mar 21 '13 at 21:52

Phillip Schmidt · Answer 1 · 2013-03-26T18:50:36.397

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Assuming they'll be delimited by newlines, you could do this:

var array = document.getElementById('yourTextAreasID').value.split('\n');

Or if URLs aren't the only thing in the textarea, you'll have to use a regex. Something like this:

var array = document.getElementById('yourTextAreasID').value.split(/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,4}([\/-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#\?&//=]*)*/gi);

It's a good regex for finding URLs in many formats.

edited Mar 26 '13 at 18:50

answered Mar 21 '13 at 18:32

Phillip Schmidt

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Phillip, adding this, seems to lock up my fiddle. – Sujesh Arukil Mar 21 '13 at 18:58
@SujeshArukil that's actually because your while loop wasn't checking to see if the result was null, I believe. Try [this](http://jsfiddle.net/hyEem/24/) – Phillip Schmidt Mar 21 '13 at 19:17
that seems to do it. But still no query string parameters. – Sujesh Arukil Mar 21 '13 at 19:20
@SujeshArukil [here you go](http://jsfiddle.net/hyEem/31/). I updated it for you. I think it should work. – Phillip Schmidt Mar 21 '13 at 19:36
_"borrowed this from the internet"_ - please add a link to the source. – MikeM Mar 21 '13 at 20:10
@MikeM Don't feel like looking for it. Instead, I replaced it with one I wrote. – Phillip Schmidt Mar 21 '13 at 20:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 21 '13 at 18:37

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RegEx for finding urls in a textarea: ((?:https?:|www\.)[^\s]+)
Explained demo here: http://regex101.com/r/vZ0aE9

answered Mar 21 '13 at 18:37

CSᵠ

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Is `mysubomain.domain.com` not a URL? – Kenneth K. Mar 21 '13 at 18:41
What happens with URLs in parenthesis? Also this grossly over-simplifies everything that makes a URL... – dlras2 Mar 21 '13 at 18:42
true, this is a simple regex to handle most cases but will fail on exceptions, that's why I +1'd @Philip's answer – CSᵠ Mar 21 '13 at 18:46
no go for query strings. – Sujesh Arukil Mar 21 '13 at 18:58
@SujeshArukil How does this not work for query strings? This should grab *everything*. – dlras2 Mar 21 '13 at 19:20
Perfect. Was not doing it right then! It works, my bad. Thanks. – Sujesh Arukil Mar 21 '13 at 19:23
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Okay, but the outer `()` are unnecessary and `[^\s]` is just `\S`. – MikeM Mar 21 '13 at 20:14

get all URLs in a textarea

2 Answers2