a regular expression for a web address?

[Forbes]

OK, I hate them .. no, I loath them.

But, hate or loath them, you need 'em.

I'm looking for a nice expression to validate a web address.

The one I have at the minute works for others but simply will not work for me:

$pattern = "/^(http|https|ftp)\://((([a-z_0-9\-]+)+(([\:]?)+([a-z_0-9\-]+))?)(\@+)?)?(((((([0-1])?([0-9])?[0-9])|(2[0-4][0-9])|(2[0-5][0-5])))\.(((([0-1])?([0-9])?[0-9])|(2[0-4][0-9])|(2[0-5][0-5])))\.(((([0-1])?([0-9])?[0-9])|(2[0-4][0-9])|(2[0-5][0-5])))\.(((([0-1])?([0-9])?[0-9])|(2[0-4][0-9])|(2[0-5][0-5]))))|((([a-z0-9\-])+\.)+([a-z]{2}\.[a-z]{2}|[a-z]{2,4})))(([\:])(([1-9]{1}[0-9]{1,3})|([1-5]{1}[0-9]{2,4})|(6[0-5]{2}[0-3][0-6])))?(/)?$/";

So, anyone here know either a fix for this or know of a better one?

Thanks in advance...

[vinyl-junkie]

Here's one:

$pattern = "^(http|https|ftp)://(www\.)?.+\.(com|net|org)$";

[Forbes]

Thanks, but that relies on a list of TLD's. That's not going to work unless I populate it with all of the TLD's.

Although not difficult, it's something I want to avoid. I'd prefer the expression to be smart enough to work with whatever TLD is thrown at it...

[trogdor1024]

you could verify that the TLD portion of the string is between 2 and 4 alpha characters, that might help a little.

[drzoid]

You might also want to consider that any of the following URLs ist valid

http://www.microsoft.com:80/
http://207.46.244.188:80/
http://anonymous:password@207.46.244.188:80/

[Forbes]

you could verify that the TLD portion of the string is between 2 and 4 alpha characters, that might help a little.

Which is what I'm chipping away at right now.

Problem is, what about the likes of: 'co.uk'? That's where I start to loose the plot a little.

The expression I posted is a mystery to me. I found it on some .asp forum and gave it a go, to no avail.

I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I'll let you know what happen, if not for your sake, but for others who might be searching on just this topic...

[swdev]

Try out this link for URI regexps

http://regexlib.com/DisplayPatterns....1&categoryId=2

I find that http://regexlib.com is a great resource for testing regexps and for lots of helpful advice.

[Forbes]

I find that http://regexlib.com is a great resource for testing regexps and for lots of helpful advice.

That's where I got my expression from .. the one that doesn't work!

I'll have a look at the other website...

[Forbes]

There's something else not working, here.

I've tried the above example and that won't work, either. Here's my method:

	// check whether input is a valid web address
	function isWebAddress($field, $value, $msg) {

		$value = $this->_getValue($value);
		$pattern = "^(http|https|ftp)://(www\.)?.+\.(com|net|org)$";

		if(preg_match($pattern, $value)) {

			return true;

		} else {

			$this->validateArrayErrorList[] = array("field" => $field, "msg" => $msg);

			return false;

		} // end if

	} // end function isWebAddress

It's strange, because I've got another method for email addresses that works fine.

This method just doesn't want to work!

[swdev]

what does

  $value = $this->_getValue($value); 

return?
Try echoing out the value of $value before and after this call.

[Forbes]

what does

  $value = $this->_getValue($value); 

return?
Try echoing out the value of $value before and after this call.

Just did that.

It's a method that calls htmlspecialchars().

The output of the $value is fine. I'm not sure what's happening!

Like I said, I've got a similar method for emails and that works fine...

[Forbes]

This is what I've cooked up so far:

$pattern = "/^(http|https|ftp)://(www\.)?.+\.([[:alpha:]]{1,})(\.?[[:alpha:]]{1,})?$/";

It's probably horribly wrong...