Check if the URL is valid

Question

I'm creating a little script where i wanna check whether a specific url is valid. I've found a this function below to do this. However this only returns true if it starts with http:// is it possible to make so that it also accept a url like following

www.example.com
example.com

Code:

if (filter_var('http://www.example.com', FILTER_VALIDATE_URL) !== FALSE) {
}

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2280394/how-can-i-check-if-a-url-exists-via-php — sergio, May 18 '15 at 15:59
Check this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/16436491/1635676 — Touqeer Shafi, May 18 '15 at 16:00
possible duplicate of [validate url with regular expressions](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16434017/validate-url-with-regular-expressions) — Roan, May 18 '15 at 16:04
`filter_var` is a good choice unlike creating crippled self-made regex validators. If you want it to tolerate the missing schema, then just check if the string starts with http(s?)://, and add it yourself if it doesn't. — disjunction, May 18 '15 at 16:47

Joel Hinz · Answer 1 · 2015-05-18T16:09:32.640

0

I think the easiest way is to, if the check fails, just slap http:// in front of it and try that, too. If that works, chances are quite good it's a valid http url that just left the http:// part out. The function filter_var() is definitely the proper way to do it. Writing your own regexes, trying to download an address, etc., is completely unnecessary.

edited May 18 '15 at 16:09

answered May 18 '15 at 15:58

Joel Hinz

24,719
6
62
75

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 18 '15 at 16:00

0

Try following regex approach...

function is_url_valid($url)
{
    if(! preg_match('/^(https?:\/\/)?([\da-z\.-]+)\.([a-z\.]{2,6})([\/\w \.-]*)*\/?$/', $url))
    {
        return false;    
    }
    else return true;
}

answered May 18 '15 at 16:00

vps

422
2
6

Check if the URL is valid

2 Answers2