Jquery check if String consists of any URL and get it

Question

I want to get a url from a string but I am unfamiliar with the use of regex or any such methods.

For example i have 3 strings,

"I've navigated to www.facebook.com";
"I've navigated to www.facebook.com and to www.google.com";
"I've navigated to https://www.facebook.com ;

In my case : I should get "www.facebook.com" as the url that is extracted from the first string.

All I want is to get the first url inside the string so i can make a link preview using an API I found. But I am struggling to get the url using Javascript or Jquery. The string will be gotten from a textbox and I want to get the url on keyup.

Tons of examples out there on the InterWebs, including lots here at StackOverflow. Please research before posting here unless you can state a special case where the other examples don't fit. https://www.google.com/search?q=javascript+regex+to+detect+url&oq=javascript+regex+to+detect+url — Tony Hinkle, Jan 28 '16 at 02:20
Well already tried to google it. But examples are not fitting on my case. I need to check entire string IF theres is a url inside the string but examples given were just checking if string is a url. Just like what i've said, i dont know much in regex. — Romnick Susa, Jan 28 '16 at 02:26
Answers, however simple, will make much more sense to you when you've at least attempted to do it and have something to show, however small! — PeterKA, Jan 28 '16 at 02:28
Possible duplicate of [What is a good regular expression to match a URL?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3809401/what-is-a-good-regular-expression-to-match-a-url) — Tushar, Jan 28 '16 at 03:08

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

You can use this function to extract the first URL found in the given string:

function getFirstUrl(string) {
    var pattern = /(https?:\/\/)?(www\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\+~#=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,6}\b([-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)/;
    var match = string.match(pattern);
    return match[0];
}

var string = "I've nagivated to www.facebook.com and to www.google.com";
var url = getFirstUrl(string);
// url === 'www.facebook.com'

I got the regex pattern from this answer and modified it to make the https:// part optional.

Jquery check if String consists of any URL and get it

1 Answers1