How to differentiate between a string and a url easier in c# WinForms WebView2

Question

So I have this giant monstrosity of code, which works as expected, goes to the respective URL and if it's not a URL it goes to search for the string(s). The problem is

the websites that are down but exist or don't give a response are deemed as not a URL and therefore are being searched for instead
pinging the same site too many times leads to being blocked, eg google.
The ping method takes too long to respond.

[...]
            try
            {
                timer1.Start();
                if (SearchBox.Text.Contains(SearchBox.Text.ToString()))
                {
                    if (webView21 != null && webView21.CoreWebView2 != null)
                    {
                        Ping pingSender = new Ping();
                        PingOptions options = new PingOptions();

                        // Use the default Ttl value which is 128,
                        // but change the fragmentation behavior.
                        options.DontFragment = true;

                        // Create a buffer of 32 bytes of data to be transmitted.
                        string data = "aaa";
                        byte[] buffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data);
                        int timeout = 0;
                        PingReply reply = pingSender.Send(SearchBox.Text.ToString(), timeout, buffer, options);
                        if (reply.Status == IPStatus.Success)
                        {
                            if (SearchBox.Text.StartsWith("https://"))
                            {
                                webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(SearchBox.Text);
                            }
                            else if (SearchBox.Text.StartsWith("http://"))
                            {
                                webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(SearchBox.Text);
                            }
                            else
                            {
                                webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate("https://" + SearchBox.Text);
                            }


                        }
                        else
                        {
                            webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate("https://duckduckgo.com/?q=" + SearchBox.Text + "&t=h_&ia=web");
                        }


                    }
                }
                else if (SearchBox.Text.StartsWith("https://"))
                {
                    if (webView21 != null && webView21.CoreWebView2 != null)
                    {
                        webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(SearchBox.Text);

                    }
                }
                else if (SearchBox.Text.StartsWith("http://"))
                {
                    if (webView21 != null && webView21.CoreWebView2 != null)
                    {
                        webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(SearchBox.Text);

                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    if (webView21 != null && webView21.CoreWebView2 != null)
                    {
                        webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(SearchBox.Text);

                    }
                }
                
                
            }
            catch
            {
                timer1.Start();
                webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate("https://duckduckgo.com/?q=" + SearchBox.Text + "&t=h_&ia=web");

            }
        }

Does anybody know how I could improve on this? How can I make my web browser more efficient at this. Regex maybe?

did you see: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7578857/how-to-check-whether-a-string-is-a-valid-http-url — sommmen, Jun 21 '21 at 15:05
@sommmen no I didn't but how would I implement it? Could you post an answer on how I can change my code to utilize this? — , Jun 21 '21 at 19:32

sommmen · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-23T10:45:13.780

TBH i think you can replace your whole code with something like this:

        string userInputtedString = SearchBox.Text;

        // CHeck for a valid URI.
        Uri uriResult;
        bool validUrlResult = Uri.TryCreate(userInputtedString, UriKind.Absolute, out uriResult)
                      && (uriResult.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttp || uriResult.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttps);

        if (validUrlResult)
        {
            webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(userInputtedString);
        }
        else
        {
            // We haven't gotten a valid url, so we're gonna search instead.
            webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate("https://duckduckgo.com/?q=" + userInputtedString + "&t=h_&ia=web");
        }

EDIT:

Apparently Uri requires a scheme (http:// or https:// or file:// etc) for the Uri class to be constructed. Hence why google.com fails - the browser automatically adds the http(s):// scheme which is why it works if you type it in the browser.

I think for your case you can try the other answers:

bool IsValidURL(string URL)
{
    string Pattern = @"^(?:http(s)?:\/\/)?[\w.-]+(?:\.[\w\.-]+)+[\w\-\._~:/?#[\]@!\$&'\(\)\*\+,;=.]+$";
    Regex Rgx = new Regex(Pattern, RegexOptions.Compiled | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
    return Rgx.IsMatch(URL);
}

So that would become something like:

        string userInputtedString = SearchBox.Text;

        // CHeck for a valid URI.
        Uri uriResult;
        bool validUrlResult = IsValidURL(userInputtedString);

        if (validUrlResult)
        {
            webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate(userInputtedString);
        }
        else
        {
            // We haven't gotten a valid url, so we're gonna search instead.
            webView21.CoreWebView2.Navigate("https://duckduckgo.com/?q=" + userInputtedString + "&t=h_&ia=web");
        }

Check if that improves your use-case.

thanks, but how would I navigate to https://google.com if the string input is google.com? it just searches for it as of now. Thx :D — , Jun 23 '21 at 10:25
@alSW2 a difficult one - i've made an edit, not sure if that works. try inputting regular test and see if that is still a search — sommmen, Jun 23 '21 at 10:45
that throws me ``System.ArgumentException: 'Value is out of range.'`` when trying to go to google.com — , Jun 23 '21 at 11:18

How to differentiate between a string and a url easier in c# WinForms WebView2

1 Answers1