Regular expression to match URLs in Java
Asked Answered
D

11

100

I use RegexBuddy while working with regular expressions. From its library I copied the regular expression to match URLs. I tested successfully within RegexBuddy. However, when I copied it as Java String flavor and pasted it into Java code, it does not work. The following class prints false:

public class RegexFoo {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String regex = "\\b(https?|ftp|file)://[-A-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-A-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";
        String text = "http://google.com";
        System.out.println(IsMatch(text,regex));
}

    private static boolean IsMatch(String s, String pattern) {
        try {
            Pattern patt = Pattern.compile(pattern);
            Matcher matcher = patt.matcher(s);
            return matcher.matches();
        } catch (RuntimeException e) {
        return false;
    }       
}   
}

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Deaver answered 2/10, 2008 at 16:40 Comment(3)
Sergio, do not catch RuntimeException. It may introduce subtle bugs and is a bad practice overall. If you just want to ignore the scenario when the expression is illegal the use: } catch ( PatternSyntaxException pse ){} instead. See item 57 of: java.sun.com/docs/books/effectiveHunk
Or you could use Pattern patt = Pattern.compile(pattern, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); to avoid changing the regex to match both uppercase and lowercase.Riotous
I know that this is really old ('08), but for anyone having similar issues, RegexBuddy has the "Use" tab. Make sure you first select the Java 7 flavor, and then in the "Use" panel you can let it generate the Java code for your specific case. This worked nicely for me.Dennard
E
116

Try the following regex string instead. Your test was probably done in a case-sensitive manner. I have added the lowercase alphas as well as a proper string beginning placeholder.

String regex = "^(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";

This works too:

String regex = "\\b(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";

Note:

String regex = "<\\b(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]>"; // matches <http://google.com>

String regex = "<^(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]>"; // does not match <http://google.com>
Equivocate answered 2/10, 2008 at 16:48 Comment(8)
Using your regular expression i get false too.Deaver
Did you catch my last edit. I fat fingered the beginning of the string. I just copied it into Eclipse and I get "true".Equivocate
thanks man, first time i see utility to the comments in stackoverflowDeaver
No problem. If you're using Eclipse I like using the RegEx Tester plugin available here brosinski.com/regexEquivocate
thansk for the link i am using eclipseDeaver
I can not edit your answer. Maybe you could edit yourself and combine my last answer with yoursDeaver
Is this regular expression security-sensitive ? I got doubt because of OWASP page owasp.org/www-community/attacks/…Spaniel
this fail if the URL has $ in some parameterMainstream
S
104

The best way to do it now is:

android.util.Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(linkUrl).matches();

EDIT: Code of Patterns from https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/blob/master/core/java/android/util/Patterns.java :

/*
 * Copyright (C) 2007 The Android Open Source Project
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package android.util;

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

/**
 * Commonly used regular expression patterns.
 */
public class Patterns {
    /**
     *  Regular expression to match all IANA top-level domains.
     *  List accurate as of 2011/07/18.  List taken from:
     *  http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
     *  This pattern is auto-generated by frameworks/ex/common/tools/make-iana-tld-pattern.py
     *
     *  @deprecated Due to the recent profileration of gTLDs, this API is
     *  expected to become out-of-date very quickly. Therefore it is now
     *  deprecated.
     */
    @Deprecated
    public static final String TOP_LEVEL_DOMAIN_STR =
        "((aero|arpa|asia|a[cdefgilmnoqrstuwxz])"
        + "|(biz|b[abdefghijmnorstvwyz])"
        + "|(cat|com|coop|c[acdfghiklmnoruvxyz])"
        + "|d[ejkmoz]"
        + "|(edu|e[cegrstu])"
        + "|f[ijkmor]"
        + "|(gov|g[abdefghilmnpqrstuwy])"
        + "|h[kmnrtu]"
        + "|(info|int|i[delmnoqrst])"
        + "|(jobs|j[emop])"
        + "|k[eghimnprwyz]"
        + "|l[abcikrstuvy]"
        + "|(mil|mobi|museum|m[acdeghklmnopqrstuvwxyz])"
        + "|(name|net|n[acefgilopruz])"
        + "|(org|om)"
        + "|(pro|p[aefghklmnrstwy])"
        + "|qa"
        + "|r[eosuw]"
        + "|s[abcdeghijklmnortuvyz]"
        + "|(tel|travel|t[cdfghjklmnoprtvwz])"
        + "|u[agksyz]"
        + "|v[aceginu]"
        + "|w[fs]"
        + "|(\u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03b9\u03bc\u03ae|\u0438\u0441\u043f\u044b\u0442\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0435|\u0440\u0444|\u0441\u0440\u0431|\u05d8\u05e2\u05e1\u05d8|\u0622\u0632\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0634\u06cc|\u0625\u062e\u062a\u0628\u0627\u0631|\u0627\u0644\u0627\u0631\u062f\u0646|\u0627\u0644\u062c\u0632\u0627\u0626\u0631|\u0627\u0644\u0633\u0639\u0648\u062f\u064a\u0629|\u0627\u0644\u0645\u063a\u0631\u0628|\u0627\u0645\u0627\u0631\u0627\u062a|\u0628\u06be\u0627\u0631\u062a|\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0633|\u0633\u0648\u0631\u064a\u0629|\u0641\u0644\u0633\u0637\u064a\u0646|\u0642\u0637\u0631|\u0645\u0635\u0631|\u092a\u0930\u0940\u0915\u094d\u0937\u093e|\u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924|\u09ad\u09be\u09b0\u09a4|\u0a2d\u0a3e\u0a30\u0a24|\u0aad\u0abe\u0ab0\u0aa4|\u0b87\u0ba8\u0bcd\u0ba4\u0bbf\u0baf\u0bbe|\u0b87\u0bb2\u0b99\u0bcd\u0b95\u0bc8|\u0b9a\u0bbf\u0b99\u0bcd\u0b95\u0baa\u0bcd\u0baa\u0bc2\u0bb0\u0bcd|\u0baa\u0bb0\u0bbf\u0b9f\u0bcd\u0b9a\u0bc8|\u0c2d\u0c3e\u0c30\u0c24\u0c4d|\u0dbd\u0d82\u0d9a\u0dcf|\u0e44\u0e17\u0e22|\u30c6\u30b9\u30c8|\u4e2d\u56fd|\u4e2d\u570b|\u53f0\u6e7e|\u53f0\u7063|\u65b0\u52a0\u5761|\u6d4b\u8bd5|\u6e2c\u8a66|\u9999\u6e2f|\ud14c\uc2a4\ud2b8|\ud55c\uad6d|xn\\-\\-0zwm56d|xn\\-\\-11b5bs3a9aj6g|xn\\-\\-3e0b707e|xn\\-\\-45brj9c|xn\\-\\-80akhbyknj4f|xn\\-\\-90a3ac|xn\\-\\-9t4b11yi5a|xn\\-\\-clchc0ea0b2g2a9gcd|xn\\-\\-deba0ad|xn\\-\\-fiqs8s|xn\\-\\-fiqz9s|xn\\-\\-fpcrj9c3d|xn\\-\\-fzc2c9e2c|xn\\-\\-g6w251d|xn\\-\\-gecrj9c|xn\\-\\-h2brj9c|xn\\-\\-hgbk6aj7f53bba|xn\\-\\-hlcj6aya9esc7a|xn\\-\\-j6w193g|xn\\-\\-jxalpdlp|xn\\-\\-kgbechtv|xn\\-\\-kprw13d|xn\\-\\-kpry57d|xn\\-\\-lgbbat1ad8j|xn\\-\\-mgbaam7a8h|xn\\-\\-mgbayh7gpa|xn\\-\\-mgbbh1a71e|xn\\-\\-mgbc0a9azcg|xn\\-\\-mgberp4a5d4ar|xn\\-\\-o3cw4h|xn\\-\\-ogbpf8fl|xn\\-\\-p1ai|xn\\-\\-pgbs0dh|xn\\-\\-s9brj9c|xn\\-\\-wgbh1c|xn\\-\\-wgbl6a|xn\\-\\-xkc2al3hye2a|xn\\-\\-xkc2dl3a5ee0h|xn\\-\\-yfro4i67o|xn\\-\\-ygbi2ammx|xn\\-\\-zckzah|xxx)"
        + "|y[et]"
        + "|z[amw])";

    /**
     *  Regular expression pattern to match all IANA top-level domains.
     *  @deprecated This API is deprecated. See {@link #TOP_LEVEL_DOMAIN_STR}.
     */
    @Deprecated
    public static final Pattern TOP_LEVEL_DOMAIN =
        Pattern.compile(TOP_LEVEL_DOMAIN_STR);

    /**
     *  Regular expression to match all IANA top-level domains for WEB_URL.
     *  List accurate as of 2011/07/18.  List taken from:
     *  http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
     *  This pattern is auto-generated by frameworks/ex/common/tools/make-iana-tld-pattern.py
     *
     *  @deprecated This API is deprecated. See {@link #TOP_LEVEL_DOMAIN_STR}.
     */
    @Deprecated
    public static final String TOP_LEVEL_DOMAIN_STR_FOR_WEB_URL =
        "(?:"
        + "(?:aero|arpa|asia|a[cdefgilmnoqrstuwxz])"
        + "|(?:biz|b[abdefghijmnorstvwyz])"
        + "|(?:cat|com|coop|c[acdfghiklmnoruvxyz])"
        + "|d[ejkmoz]"
        + "|(?:edu|e[cegrstu])"
        + "|f[ijkmor]"
        + "|(?:gov|g[abdefghilmnpqrstuwy])"
        + "|h[kmnrtu]"
        + "|(?:info|int|i[delmnoqrst])"
        + "|(?:jobs|j[emop])"
        + "|k[eghimnprwyz]"
        + "|l[abcikrstuvy]"
        + "|(?:mil|mobi|museum|m[acdeghklmnopqrstuvwxyz])"
        + "|(?:name|net|n[acefgilopruz])"
        + "|(?:org|om)"
        + "|(?:pro|p[aefghklmnrstwy])"
        + "|qa"
        + "|r[eosuw]"
        + "|s[abcdeghijklmnortuvyz]"
        + "|(?:tel|travel|t[cdfghjklmnoprtvwz])"
        + "|u[agksyz]"
        + "|v[aceginu]"
        + "|w[fs]"
        + "|(?:\u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03b9\u03bc\u03ae|\u0438\u0441\u043f\u044b\u0442\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0435|\u0440\u0444|\u0441\u0440\u0431|\u05d8\u05e2\u05e1\u05d8|\u0622\u0632\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0634\u06cc|\u0625\u062e\u062a\u0628\u0627\u0631|\u0627\u0644\u0627\u0631\u062f\u0646|\u0627\u0644\u062c\u0632\u0627\u0626\u0631|\u0627\u0644\u0633\u0639\u0648\u062f\u064a\u0629|\u0627\u0644\u0645\u063a\u0631\u0628|\u0627\u0645\u0627\u0631\u0627\u062a|\u0628\u06be\u0627\u0631\u062a|\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0633|\u0633\u0648\u0631\u064a\u0629|\u0641\u0644\u0633\u0637\u064a\u0646|\u0642\u0637\u0631|\u0645\u0635\u0631|\u092a\u0930\u0940\u0915\u094d\u0937\u093e|\u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924|\u09ad\u09be\u09b0\u09a4|\u0a2d\u0a3e\u0a30\u0a24|\u0aad\u0abe\u0ab0\u0aa4|\u0b87\u0ba8\u0bcd\u0ba4\u0bbf\u0baf\u0bbe|\u0b87\u0bb2\u0b99\u0bcd\u0b95\u0bc8|\u0b9a\u0bbf\u0b99\u0bcd\u0b95\u0baa\u0bcd\u0baa\u0bc2\u0bb0\u0bcd|\u0baa\u0bb0\u0bbf\u0b9f\u0bcd\u0b9a\u0bc8|\u0c2d\u0c3e\u0c30\u0c24\u0c4d|\u0dbd\u0d82\u0d9a\u0dcf|\u0e44\u0e17\u0e22|\u30c6\u30b9\u30c8|\u4e2d\u56fd|\u4e2d\u570b|\u53f0\u6e7e|\u53f0\u7063|\u65b0\u52a0\u5761|\u6d4b\u8bd5|\u6e2c\u8a66|\u9999\u6e2f|\ud14c\uc2a4\ud2b8|\ud55c\uad6d|xn\\-\\-0zwm56d|xn\\-\\-11b5bs3a9aj6g|xn\\-\\-3e0b707e|xn\\-\\-45brj9c|xn\\-\\-80akhbyknj4f|xn\\-\\-90a3ac|xn\\-\\-9t4b11yi5a|xn\\-\\-clchc0ea0b2g2a9gcd|xn\\-\\-deba0ad|xn\\-\\-fiqs8s|xn\\-\\-fiqz9s|xn\\-\\-fpcrj9c3d|xn\\-\\-fzc2c9e2c|xn\\-\\-g6w251d|xn\\-\\-gecrj9c|xn\\-\\-h2brj9c|xn\\-\\-hgbk6aj7f53bba|xn\\-\\-hlcj6aya9esc7a|xn\\-\\-j6w193g|xn\\-\\-jxalpdlp|xn\\-\\-kgbechtv|xn\\-\\-kprw13d|xn\\-\\-kpry57d|xn\\-\\-lgbbat1ad8j|xn\\-\\-mgbaam7a8h|xn\\-\\-mgbayh7gpa|xn\\-\\-mgbbh1a71e|xn\\-\\-mgbc0a9azcg|xn\\-\\-mgberp4a5d4ar|xn\\-\\-o3cw4h|xn\\-\\-ogbpf8fl|xn\\-\\-p1ai|xn\\-\\-pgbs0dh|xn\\-\\-s9brj9c|xn\\-\\-wgbh1c|xn\\-\\-wgbl6a|xn\\-\\-xkc2al3hye2a|xn\\-\\-xkc2dl3a5ee0h|xn\\-\\-yfro4i67o|xn\\-\\-ygbi2ammx|xn\\-\\-zckzah|xxx)"
        + "|y[et]"
        + "|z[amw]))";

    /**
     * Good characters for Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRI).
     * This comprises most common used Unicode characters allowed in IRI
     * as detailed in RFC 3987.
     * Specifically, those two byte Unicode characters are not included.
     */
    public static final String GOOD_IRI_CHAR =
        "a-zA-Z0-9\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF";

    public static final Pattern IP_ADDRESS
        = Pattern.compile(
            "((25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1][0-9]{2}|[1-9][0-9]|[1-9])\\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4]"
            + "[0-9]|[0-1][0-9]{2}|[1-9][0-9]|[1-9]|0)\\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1]"
            + "[0-9]{2}|[1-9][0-9]|[1-9]|0)\\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[0-1][0-9]{2}"
            + "|[1-9][0-9]|[0-9]))");

    /**
     * RFC 1035 Section 2.3.4 limits the labels to a maximum 63 octets.
     */
    private static final String IRI
        = "[" + GOOD_IRI_CHAR + "]([" + GOOD_IRI_CHAR + "\\-]{0,61}[" + GOOD_IRI_CHAR + "]){0,1}";

    private static final String GOOD_GTLD_CHAR =
        "a-zA-Z\u00A0-\uD7FF\uF900-\uFDCF\uFDF0-\uFFEF";
    private static final String GTLD = "[" + GOOD_GTLD_CHAR + "]{2,63}";
    private static final String HOST_NAME = "(" + IRI + "\\.)+" + GTLD;

    public static final Pattern DOMAIN_NAME
        = Pattern.compile("(" + HOST_NAME + "|" + IP_ADDRESS + ")");

    /**
     *  Regular expression pattern to match most part of RFC 3987
     *  Internationalized URLs, aka IRIs.  Commonly used Unicode characters are
     *  added.
     */
    public static final Pattern WEB_URL = Pattern.compile(
        "((?:(http|https|Http|Https|rtsp|Rtsp):\\/\\/(?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9\\$\\-\\_\\.\\+\\!\\*\\'\\(\\)"
        + "\\,\\;\\?\\&\\=]|(?:\\%[a-fA-F0-9]{2})){1,64}(?:\\:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9\\$\\-\\_"
        + "\\.\\+\\!\\*\\'\\(\\)\\,\\;\\?\\&\\=]|(?:\\%[a-fA-F0-9]{2})){1,25})?\\@)?)?"
        + "(?:" + DOMAIN_NAME + ")"
        + "(?:\\:\\d{1,5})?)" // plus option port number
        + "(\\/(?:(?:[" + GOOD_IRI_CHAR + "\\;\\/\\?\\:\\@\\&\\=\\#\\~"  // plus option query params
        + "\\-\\.\\+\\!\\*\\'\\(\\)\\,\\_])|(?:\\%[a-fA-F0-9]{2}))*)?"
        + "(?:\\b|$)"); // and finally, a word boundary or end of
                        // input.  This is to stop foo.sure from
                        // matching as foo.su

    public static final Pattern EMAIL_ADDRESS
        = Pattern.compile(
            "[a-zA-Z0-9\\+\\.\\_\\%\\-\\+]{1,256}" +
            "\\@" +
            "[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9\\-]{0,64}" +
            "(" +
                "\\." +
                "[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9\\-]{0,25}" +
            ")+"
        );

    /**
     * This pattern is intended for searching for things that look like they
     * might be phone numbers in arbitrary text, not for validating whether
     * something is in fact a phone number.  It will miss many things that
     * are legitimate phone numbers.
     *
     * <p> The pattern matches the following:
     * <ul>
     * <li>Optionally, a + sign followed immediately by one or more digits. Spaces, dots, or dashes
     * may follow.
     * <li>Optionally, sets of digits in parentheses, separated by spaces, dots, or dashes.
     * <li>A string starting and ending with a digit, containing digits, spaces, dots, and/or dashes.
     * </ul>
     */
    public static final Pattern PHONE
        = Pattern.compile(                      // sdd = space, dot, or dash
                "(\\+[0-9]+[\\- \\.]*)?"        // +<digits><sdd>*
                + "(\\([0-9]+\\)[\\- \\.]*)?"   // (<digits>)<sdd>*
                + "([0-9][0-9\\- \\.]+[0-9])"); // <digit><digit|sdd>+<digit>

    /**
     *  Convenience method to take all of the non-null matching groups in a
     *  regex Matcher and return them as a concatenated string.
     *
     *  @param matcher      The Matcher object from which grouped text will
     *                      be extracted
     *
     *  @return             A String comprising all of the non-null matched
     *                      groups concatenated together
     */
    public static final String concatGroups(Matcher matcher) {
        StringBuilder b = new StringBuilder();
        final int numGroups = matcher.groupCount();

        for (int i = 1; i <= numGroups; i++) {
            String s = matcher.group(i);

            if (s != null) {
                b.append(s);
            }
        }

        return b.toString();
    }

    /**
     * Convenience method to return only the digits and plus signs
     * in the matching string.
     *
     * @param matcher      The Matcher object from which digits and plus will
     *                     be extracted
     *
     * @return             A String comprising all of the digits and plus in
     *                     the match
     */
    public static final String digitsAndPlusOnly(Matcher matcher) {
        StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder();
        String matchingRegion = matcher.group();

        for (int i = 0, size = matchingRegion.length(); i < size; i++) {
            char character = matchingRegion.charAt(i);

            if (character == '+' || Character.isDigit(character)) {
                buffer.append(character);
            }
        }
        return buffer.toString();
    }

    /**
     * Do not create this static utility class.
     */
    private Patterns() {}
}
Sarasvati answered 20/9, 2013 at 11:18 Comment(11)
+1 for you! Thank you so much!!! This is great code! Everybody is trying this with difficult regex while it could be this easy. Awesome!Tomfool
@JPM Except that the OP was looking for a Java solution not an Android specific one (easy to forget to look at the specific tags for a Q). Still, a good thing for those who do code for Android to know about so I upped.Octavie
@Octavie lol when working in android for over 4 years its easy to forget that there is still a whole Java world out there and that Android is a subset of it...Chuchuah
@Octavie luckily, Android is open source and you can fetch the code from github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/blob/master/core/… :)Wadleigh
@Wadleigh I think your comment is the only thing making this answer acceptable/helpful, as the question is looking for java solution, not androidEyespot
@mmcrae well, I'm glad you found my comment helpful! In fact, I realized that you are absolutely correct, and made an edit to make the post more informative, in case my link stops working or something.Wadleigh
Correct, OP was looking for a Java solution in '08. It's super you found something that works in '14 but perhaps the Android solution should be moved to it's own question.Equivocate
it doesn't check whether url starts from http or https. I tested with www.www and it gave me true. So not useful for meWeslee
deprecated + android specific solutionHomocyclic
It returned true even when I left of the URL extension (.com, .edu, etc.) This makes this class useless to me too. I will stick to regular RegExDoodlesack
this seems to say the url matches if I do just google.com, it should fail if https:// isn't included.Roughhew
P
78

I'll try a standard "Why are you doing it this way?" answer... Do you know about java.net.URL?

URL url = new URL(stringURL);

The above will throw a MalformedURLException if it can't parse the URL.

Proportional answered 2/10, 2008 at 16:53 Comment(8)
I have to go through the regular expressions road. What i post here is as simple as possible to make my question clear. In my program I am using the URL regex inside a more complex regex.Deaver
That's cool. I didn't have a better answer regex-wise, so I thought I'd post an alternative. Didn't think I'd get down-ticked for it, though.Proportional
you are right, maybe down-ticked was a bit two much. The "I'll try the standard" just sounded a bit offensive.Deaver
cool (sorry, quick vacation). Ya, definitely wasn't intended that way. I just see that a lot here, and sometimes it even helps.Proportional
"new URL" only throws MalformedURLException if the port < 0 or it doesn't understand the protocol. Other than that anything goes. It won't catch: 1.2.3. 1.2.3.4.5 1.2,3.4.5: etcAdmirable
Very funny, but if you're verifying a lot of string most of which are not URL, it will be throwing lots of exceptions which you probably don't desire.Darkish
This isn't really an URL detector, but a URL validator.Angry
This doesn't detect some malformations that might throw other things off. For example, an extra : in the scheme won't be picked up by this, but Selenium webdriver will spank you for itPestilential
J
4

The problem with all suggested approaches: all RegEx is validating

All RegEx -based code is over-engineered: it will find only valid URLs! As a sample, it will ignore anything starting with "http://" and having non-ASCII characters inside.

Even more: I have encountered 1-2-seconds processing times (single-threaded, dedicated) with Java RegEx package (filtering Email addresses from text) for very small and simple sentences, nothing specific; possibly bug in Java 6 RegEx...

Simplest/Fastest solution would be to use StringTokenizer to split text into tokens, to remove tokens starting with "http://" etc., and to concatenate tokens into text again.

If you want to filter Emails from text (because later on you will do NLP staff etc) - just remove all tokens containing "@" inside.

This is simple text where RegEx of Java 6 fails. Try it in divverent variants of Java. It takes about 1000 milliseconds per RegEx call, in a long running single threaded test application:

pattern = Pattern.compile("[A-Za-z0-9](([_\\.\\-]?[a-zA-Z0-9]+)*)@([A-Za-z0-9]+)(([\\.\\-]?[a-zA-Z0-9]+)*)\\.([A-Za-z]{2,})", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);

"Avalanna is such a sweet little girl! It would b heartbreaking if cancer won. She's so precious! #BeliebersPrayForAvalanna");
"@AndySamuels31 Hahahahahahahahahhaha lol, you don't look like a girl hahahahhaahaha, you are... sexy.";

Do not rely on regular expressions if you only need to filter words with "@", "http://", "ftp://", "mailto:"; it is huge engineering overhead.

If you really want to use RegEx with Java, try Automaton

Jacquline answered 20/1, 2013 at 15:23 Comment(2)
Lol. Automaton does not support capture groups.Bram
I don't get your concern. The accepted answer's regex does in fact work well for validating URL's. You seem to deride it, saying it will find only valid URLs! -- that's the goal of OP's question. Am I missing something?Eyespot
D
3

This works too:

String regex = "\\b(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";

Note:

String regex = "<\\b(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]>"; // matches <http://google.com>

String regex = "<^(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]>"; // does not match <http://google.com>

So probably the first one is more useful for general use.

Deaver answered 2/10, 2008 at 17:24 Comment(0)
B
3

In line with billjamesdev answer, here is another approach to validate an URL without using a RegEx:

From Apache Commons Validator lib, look at class UrlValidator. Some example code:

Construct a UrlValidator with valid schemes of "http", and "https".

String[] schemes = {"http","https"}.
UrlValidator urlValidator = new UrlValidator(schemes);
if (urlValidator.isValid("ftp://foo.bar.com/")) {
   System.out.println("url is valid");
} else {
   System.out.println("url is invalid");
}

prints "url is invalid"

If instead the default constructor is used.

UrlValidator urlValidator = new UrlValidator();
if (urlValidator.isValid("ftp://foo.bar.com/")) {
   System.out.println("url is valid");
} else {
   System.out.println("url is invalid");
}

prints out "url is valid"

Barrelhouse answered 6/5, 2016 at 9:58 Comment(0)
B
3
((http?|https|ftp|file)://)?((W|w){3}.)?[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.[a-zA-Z]+

check here:- https://www.freeformatter.com/java-regex-tester.html#ad-output

It sorts out theses entries correctly

Barrens answered 12/6, 2019 at 10:36 Comment(3)
It fails for special charactersGeotropism
i needed regex for removing urls from song names. Couldnt find one or should i say most failed so i posted what worked for me and on those cases:)Barrens
yeah it does. check it on the link provided.Barrens
E
0

When using regular expressions from RegexBuddy's library, make sure to use the same matching modes in your own code as the regex from the library. If you generate a source code snippet on the Use tab, RegexBuddy will automatically set the correct matching options in the source code snippet. If you copy/paste the regex, you have to do that yourself.

In this case, as others pointed out, you missed the case insensitivity option.

Enthrone answered 9/11, 2008 at 15:11 Comment(0)
A
0

Here is a proposal of an URL parser regex that recognizes :

  • Protocol
  • Host
  • Port
  • Path (Document/folder)
  • Get parameters
^(?>(?<protocol>[[:alpha:]]+(?>\:[[:alpha:]]+)*)\:\/\/)?(?<host>(?>[[:alnum:]]|[-_.])+)(?>\:(?<port>[[:digit:]]+))?(?<path>\/(?>[[:alnum:]]|[-_.\/])*)?(?>\?(?<request>(?>[[:alnum:]]+=[[:alnum:]]+)(?>\&(?>[[:alnum:]]+=[[:alnum:]]+))*))?$

This regex is able to parse an URL such :

jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost:91/index.

There can be many way to engineer a URL regex, thus the one I propose can be lightly adapted to match more accurate URL grammars.

It can be tested on the following page : https://regex101.com/r/Dy7HE0/5

Be aware that langages native API for regex (such as java.util.regex) don't support smart character classes such as [[:alnum:]] and [[:alpha:]].

Use instead \w and \d.

Alcaraz answered 10/2, 2021 at 11:35 Comment(0)
B
0

First, an regex example:

regex = “((http|https)://)(www.)?” 
+ “[a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#?&//=]{2,256}\\.[a-z]” 
+ “{2,6}\\b([-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#?&//=]*)”

*The URL must start with either http or https and *then followed by :// and *then it must contain www. and *then followed by subdomain of length (2, 256) and *last part contains top level domain like .com, .org etc.


In JAVA

// Java program to check URL is valid or not
// using Regular Expression
 
import java.util.regex.*;
 
class GFG {
 
    // Function to validate URL
    // using regular expression
    public static boolean
    isValidURL(String url)
    {
        // Regex to check valid URL
        String regex = "((http|https)://)(www.)?"
              + "[a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#?&//=]"
              + "{2,256}\\.[a-z]"
              + "{2,6}\\b([-a-zA-Z0-9@:%"
              + "._\\+~#?&//=]*)";
 
        // Compile the ReGex
        Pattern p = Pattern.compile(regex);
 
        // If the string is empty
        // return false
        if (url == null) {
            return false;
        }
 
        // Find match between given string
        // and regular expression
        // using Pattern.matcher()
        Matcher m = p.matcher(url);
 
        // Return if the string
        // matched the ReGex
        return m.matches();
    }
 
    // Driver code
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        String url
            = "https://www.superDev.org";
        if (isValidURL(url) == true) {
            System.out.println("Yes");
        }
        else
            System.out.println("NO");
    }
}

In python 3

# Python3 program to check
# URL is valid or not
# using regular expression
import re
 
# Function to validate URL
# using regular expression
def isValidURL(str):
 
    # Regex to check valid URL
    regex = ("((http|https)://)(www.)?" +
             "[a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#?&//=]" +
             "{2,256}\\.[a-z]" +
             "{2,6}\\b([-a-zA-Z0-9@:%" +
             "._\\+~#?&//=]*)")
     
    # Compile the ReGex
    p = re.compile(regex)
 
    # If the string is empty
    # return false
    if (str == None):
        return False
 
    # Return if the string
    # matched the ReGex
    if(re.search(p, str)):
        return True
    else:
        return False
 
# Driver code
 
# Test Case 1:
url = "https://www.superDev.org"
 
if(isValidURL(url) == True):
    print("Yes")
else:
    print("No")
 
Blackout answered 12/8, 2021 at 14:52 Comment(0)
H
0

This regular expression works for me:

String regex = "(https?://|www\\.)[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";
Heins answered 17/2, 2022 at 6:50 Comment(0)

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