How to validate a complete and valid url using Regex

Question

I have a URL validation method which works pretty well except that this url passes: "http://". I would like to ensure that the user has entered a complete url like: "http://www.stackoverflow.com".

Here is the pattern I'm currently using:

"^(https?://)"
+ "?(([0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+: )?[0-9a-z_!~*'().&=+$%-]+@)?" //user@ 
+ @"(([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}" // IP- 199.194.52.184 
+ "|" // allows either IP or domain 
+ @"([0-9a-z_!~*'()-]+\.)*" // tertiary domain(s)- www. 
+ @"([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]{0,61})?[0-9a-z]\." // second level domain 
+ "[a-z]{2,6})" // first level domain- .com or .museum 
+ "(:[0-9]{1,4})?" // port number- :80 
+ "((/?)|" // a slash isn't required if there is no file name 
+ "(/[0-9a-z_!~*'().;?:@&=+$,%#-]+)+/?)$"

Any help to change the above to ensure that the user enters a complete and valid url would be greatly appreciated.

possible duplicate of Need a regex to validating a Url and support %20 and () — Daniel Vandersluis
– Daniel Vandersluis, Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 18:42
Thanks, Daniel but the pattern given in that post passes 'http://'. I see that you can parse out all the constituent parts of the url but I'm hoping to use one regex pattern if it's possible. — fynnbob
– fynnbob, Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 19:35

Mike Axiak · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-14 20:46:51Z

1

Why not use a urlparsing library? Let me list out some preexisting url parsing libraries for languages:

Ask if I'm missing a language.

This way, you could first parse the uri, then check to make sure that it passes your own verification rules. Here's an example in Python:

url = urlparse.urlparse(user_url)
if not (url.scheme and url.path):
    raise ValueError("User did not enter a correct url!")

Since you said you were using C# on asp.net, here's an example (sorry, my c# knowledge is limited):

user_url = "http://myUrl/foo/bar";
Uri uri = new Uri(user_url);
if (uri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttp && Uri.IsWellFormedUriString(user_url, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute)) {
    Console.WriteLine("I have a valid URL!");
}

edited Sep 14, 2010 at 20:46

answered Sep 14, 2010 at 18:34

Mike Axiak

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1 Comment

fynnbob Over a year ago

Thanks, Mike. I'm using c# (asp.net MVC 2). Most of my validation is done off the aspx page in classes.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 10:32:46Z

0

This is pretty much a FAQ. You could simply try a search with [regex] +validate +url or just look at this answer: What is the best regular expression to check if a string is a valid URL

edited May 23, 2017 at 10:32

CommunityBot

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answered Sep 14, 2010 at 18:38

splash

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1 Comment

fynnbob Over a year ago

Thanks, splash. After digging through your first link (the second one had the same problem I'm having) I found this post that did the trick: stackoverflow.com/questions/3546203/… (see Amir's answer). I did some preliminary testing and so far so good.

clever_bassi · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-16 21:28:28Z

0

I use this regex. It works fine for me.

/((([A-Za-z]{3,9}:(?://)?)(?:[-;:&=+\$,\w]+@)?[A-Za-z0-9.-]+|(?:www.|[-;:&=+\$,\w]+@)[A-Za-z0-9.-]+)((?:/[+~%/.\w-]*)?\??(?:[-+=&;%@.\w])#?(?:[\w]))?)/

answered Jun 16, 2014 at 21:28

clever_bassi

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