Fine Tune Regex

Question

I am trying to use this nefty regex:

\(?(?:(http|https|ftp):\/\/)?(?:((?:[^\W\s]|\.|-|[:]{1})+)@{1})?((?:www.)?(?:[^\W\s]|\.|-)+[\.][^\W\s]{2,4}|localhost(?=\/)|\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3})(?::(\d*))?([\/]?[^\s\?]*[\/]{1})*(?:\/?([^\s\n\?\[\]\{\}\#]*(?:(?=\.)){1}|[^\s\n\?\[\]\{\}\.\#]*)?([\.]{1}[^\s\?\#]*)?)?(?:\?{1}([^\s\n\#\[\]]*))?([\#][^\s\n]*)?\)?

Found it here: https://someweblog.com/url-regular-expression-javascript-link-shortener/

It finds URLs and shortens them. But there is a bug. When any 2 characters have a period "." in between it turns into a link. For example if a user forgets puts a space between 2 words... it becomes a URL.

For example: I love stack.overflow very much. stack.overflow will become a link.

And although, Javascript is used in the example. This regex works with VB.net. The one from this question does not: Regex to find URLs in a string

Your regex is way to 'greedy' in converting to url, find a better one. — Poul Bak, Sep 26 '18 at 21:19
@PoulBak I second that... OP your pattern is ridiculously (and probably unnecessarily) complex — emsimpson92, Sep 26 '18 at 21:21
Possible duplicate of [Regex to find URLs in a string](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12587892/regex-to-find-urls-in-a-string) — Poul Bak, Sep 26 '18 at 21:21

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 26 '18 at 23:39

0

I did not read the latter long expressions, but if you want to force protocol name (e.g. http) always included, you may remove the third '?' from the regex.

answered Sep 26 '18 at 23:39

akky

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Fine Tune Regex

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