Keep it simple! Say what you cannot have, rather than what you can have :)
As mentioned above, URLs can be quite complex, especially after the '?', and not all of them start with a 'www.' e.g. maps.bing.com/something?key=!"£$%^*()&lat=65&lon&lon=20
So, rather than have a complex regex that wont meet all edge cases, and will be hard to maintain, how about this much simpler one, which works well for me in practise.
Match
http(s):// (anything but a space)+
www. (anything but a space)+
Where 'anything' is [^'"<>\s]
... basically a greedy match, carrying on to you meet a space, quote, angle bracket, or end of line
Also:
Remember to check that it is not already in URL format, e.g. the text contains href="..."
or src="..."
Add ref=nofollow (if appropriate)
This solution isn't as "good" as the libraries mentioned above, but is much simpler, and works well in practise.
if html.match( /(href)|(src)/i )) {
return html; // text already has a hyper link in it
}
html = html.replace(
/\b(https?:\/\/[^\s\(\)\'\"\<\>]+)/ig,
"<a ref='nofollow' href='$1'>$1</a>"
);
html = html.replace(
/\s(www\.[^\s\(\)\'\"\<\>]+)/ig,
"<a ref='nofollow' href='http://$1'>$1</a>"
);
html = html.replace(
/^(www\.[^\s\(\)\'\"\<\>]+)/ig,
"<a ref='nofollow' href='http://$1'>$1</a>"
);
return html;
URL regexp from Component
isn't commented, some explanation of what it is doing would be helpful.Autolinker.js
is commented very well and has tests. Theurlize.js
library linked to in Vebjorn Ljosa's answer also looks featureful and well maintained, although it doesn't have tests. – Fixation