How to match bare urls with regex in PHP?

Question

$bits = preg_split('#((?:https?|ftp)://[^\s\'"<>()]+)#S', $token->data, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

Say,I'm trying to match urls that need to be linkified.The above is too permissive.

I want to only match simple urls like http://google.com, but not <a href="http://google.com">http://google.com</a>, or <iframe src="http://google.com"></iframe>

I'm trying to linkify urls,wrap it with `` **only when necessary**. — wamp, Sep 25 '10 at 09:46
I thought so. This question has been asked here a couple of dozen times. Please [consider searching](http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=), one of the answers might just do what you want. — Tomalak, Sep 25 '10 at 10:59

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

2

It appears that you're trying to parse HTML using regular expressions. You might want to rethink that.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

1
1

answered Sep 25 '10 at 08:15

Nick Bastin

30,415
7
59
78

how is matching a url in a string parsing html? – grapefrukt Sep 25 '10 at 08:46
3

You're matching the URL within an HTML context. Load the HTML into a DOMDocument and then test each text node against your pattern. – Justin Johnson Sep 25 '10 at 08:50
@wamp: If you're specifically trying to avoid a greedy algorithm that eats HTML tags, that must mean you're in a position (at least sometimes) where your link will be embedded in HTML. And that way lies madness. – Nick Bastin Sep 25 '10 at 18:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 25 '10 at 08:16

try this...

function validUrl($url){
        $return=FALSE;
        $matches=FALSE;
        $regex='#(^';                  #match[1]
        $regex.='((https?|ftps?)+://)?'; #Scheme match[2]
        $regex.='(([0-9a-z-]+\.)+'; #Domain match[5] complete match[4]
        $regex.='([a-z]{2,3}|aero|coop|jobs|mobi|museum|name|travel))'; #TLD match[6]
        $regex.='(:[0-9]{1,5})?'; #Port match[7]
        $regex.='(\/[^ ]*)?'; #Query match[8]
        $regex.='$)#i';
        if( preg_match($regex,$url,$matches) ){
            $return=$matches[0]; $domain=$matches[4];
            if(!gethostbyname($domain)){ 
                $return = FALSE;
            }
        }
        if($return==FALSE){
            return FALSE;
        }
        else{
            return $matches;
        }
    }

And how does a more complex regex help in this case? Read the question again. — Tomalak, Sep 25 '10 at 08:21
And in any case, trying to enumerate “valid” TLDs is an exercise in futility. — bobince, Sep 25 '10 at 08:55

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 25 '10 at 14:13

0

RE

http:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]*

Result

Array
(
    [0] => http://google.com
)

answered Sep 25 '10 at 14:13

Amit Kumar Gupta

7,193
12
64
90

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 25 '10 at 14:16

0

More effective RE

[hf]t{1,2}p:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\.\-]*

Result

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => ftp://article-stack.com
            [1] => http://google.com
        )
)

answered Sep 25 '10 at 14:16

Amit Kumar Gupta

7,193
12
64
90

How to match bare urls with regex in PHP?

4 Answers4