How does Stack Overflow generate its SEO-friendly URLs?

Question

What is a good complete regular expression or some other process that would take the title:

How do you change a title to be part of the URL like Stack

Answer 1

I ported the code to TypeScript. It can easily be adapted to JavaScript.

I am adding a .contains method to the String prototype, if you're targeting the latest browsers or ES6 you can use .includes instead.

if (!String.prototype.contains) {
    String.prototype.contains = function (check) {
        return this.indexOf(check, 0) !== -1;
    };
}

declare interface String {
    contains(check: string): boolean;
}

export function MakeUrlFriendly(title: string) {
            if (title == null || title == '')
                return '';

            const maxlen = 80;
            let len = title.length;
            let prevdash = false;
            let result = '';
            let c: string;
            let cc: number;
            let remapInternationalCharToAscii = function (c: string) {
                let s = c.toLowerCase();
                if ("àåáâäãåą".contains(s)) {
                    return "a";
                }
                else if ("èéêëę".contains(s)) {
                    return "e";
                }
                else if ("ìíîïı".contains(s)) {
                    return "i";
                }
                else if ("òóôõöøőð".contains(s)) {
                    return "o";
                }
                else if ("ùúûüŭů".contains(s)) {
                    return "u";
                }
                else if ("çćčĉ".contains(s)) {
                    return "c";
                }
                else if ("żźž".contains(s)) {
                    return "z";
                }
                else if ("śşšŝ".contains(s)) {
                    return "s";
                }
                else if ("ñń".contains(s)) {
                    return "n";
                }
                else if ("ýÿ".contains(s)) {
                    return "y";
                }
                else if ("ğĝ".contains(s)) {
                    return "g";
                }
                else if (c == 'ř') {
                    return "r";
                }
                else if (c == 'ł') {
                    return "l";
                }
                else if (c == 'đ') {
                    return "d";
                }
                else if (c == 'ß') {
                    return "ss";
                }
                else if (c == 'Þ') {
                    return "th";
                }
                else if (c == 'ĥ') {
                    return "h";
                }
                else if (c == 'ĵ') {
                    return "j";
                }
                else {
                    return "";
                }
            };

            for (let i = 0; i < len; i++) {
                c = title[i];
                cc = c.charCodeAt(0);

                if ((cc >= 97 /* a */ && cc <= 122 /* z */) || (cc >= 48 /* 0 */ && cc <= 57 /* 9 */)) {
                    result += c;
                    prevdash = false;
                }
                else if ((cc >= 65 && cc <= 90 /* A - Z */)) {
                    result += c.toLowerCase();
                    prevdash = false;
                }
                else if (c == ' ' || c == ',' || c == '.' || c == '/' || c == '\\' || c == '-' || c == '_' || c == '=') {
                    if (!prevdash && result.length > 0) {
                        result += '-';
                        prevdash = true;
                    }
                }
                else if (cc >= 128) {
                    let prevlen = result.length;
                    result += remapInternationalCharToAscii(c);
                    if (prevlen != result.length) prevdash = false;
                }
                if (i == maxlen) break;
            }

            if (prevdash)
                return result.substring(0, result.length - 1);
            else
                return result;
        }