Detect URLs in text with JavaScript

Question

Does anyone have suggestions for detecting URLs in a set of strings?

arrayOfStrings.forEach(function(string){
  // detect URLs in strings and do something sw         


        

Answer 1

If you want to detect links with http:// OR without http:// OR ftp OR other possible cases like removing trailing punctuation at the end, take a look at this code.

https://jsfiddle.net/AndrewKang/xtfjn8g3/

A simple way to use that is to use NPM

npm install --save url-knife

Answer 2

tmp.innerText is undefined. You should use tmp.innerHTML

function strip(html) 
    {  
        var tmp = document.createElement("DIV"); 
        tmp.innerHTML = html; 
        var urlRegex =/(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|])/ig;   
        return tmp.innerHTML .replace(urlRegex, function(url) {     
        return '\n' + url 
    })

Answer 3

Function can be further improved to render images as well:

function renderHTML(text) { 
    var rawText = strip(text)
    var urlRegex =/(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|])/ig;   

    return rawText.replace(urlRegex, function(url) {   

    if ( ( url.indexOf(".jpg") > 0 ) || ( url.indexOf(".png") > 0 ) || ( url.indexOf(".gif") > 0 ) ) {
            return '<img src="' + url + '">' + '<br/>'
        } else {
            return '<a href="' + url + '">' + url + '</a>' + '<br/>'
        }
    }) 
} 

or for a thumbnail image that links to fiull size image:

return '<a href="' + url + '"><img style="width: 100px; border: 0px; -moz-border-radius: 5px; border-radius: 5px;" src="' + url + '">' + '</a>' + '<br/>'

And here is the strip() function that pre-processes the text string for uniformity by removing any existing html.

function strip(html) 
    {  
        var tmp = document.createElement("DIV"); 
        tmp.innerHTML = html; 
        var urlRegex =/(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|])/ig;   
        return tmp.innerText.replace(urlRegex, function(url) {     
        return '\n' + url 
    })
} 

Answer 4

I googled this problem for quite a while, then it occurred to me that there is an Android method, android.text.util.Linkify, that utilizes some pretty robust regexes to accomplish this. Luckily, Android is open source.

They use a few different patterns for matching different types of urls. You can find them all here: http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.0_r1/android/text/util/Regex.java#Regex.0WEB_URL_PATTERN

If you're just concerned about url's that match the WEB_URL_PATTERN, that is, urls that conform to the RFC 1738 spec, you can use this:

/((?:(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})?\@)?)?((?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9\-]{0,64}\.)+(?:(?: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[eghimnrwyz]|l[abcikrstuvy]|(?:mil|mobi|museum|m[acdghklmnopqrstuvwxyz])|(?:name|net|n[acefgilopruz])|(?:org|om)|(?:pro|p[aefghklmnrstwy])|qa|r[eouw]|s[abcdeghijklmnortuvyz]|(?:tel|travel|t[cdfghjklmnoprtvwz])|u[agkmsyz]|v[aceginu]|w[fs]|y[etu]|z[amw]))|(?:(?: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])))(?:\:\d{1,5})?)(\/(?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9\;\/\?\:\@\&\=\#\~\-\.\+\!\*\'\(\)\,\_])|(?:\%[a-fA-F0-9]{2}))*)?(?:\b|$)/gi;

Here is the full text of the source:

"((?:(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})?\\@)?)?"
+ "((?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9\\-]{0,64}\\.)+"   // named host
+ "(?:"   // plus top level domain
+ "(?: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[eghimnrwyz]"
+ "|l[abcikrstuvy]"
+ "|(?:mil|mobi|museum|m[acdghklmnopqrstuvwxyz])"
+ "|(?:name|net|n[acefgilopruz])"
+ "|(?:org|om)"
+ "|(?:pro|p[aefghklmnrstwy])"
+ "|qa"
+ "|r[eouw]"
+ "|s[abcdeghijklmnortuvyz]"
+ "|(?:tel|travel|t[cdfghjklmnoprtvwz])"
+ "|u[agkmsyz]"
+ "|v[aceginu]"
+ "|w[fs]"
+ "|y[etu]"
+ "|z[amw]))"
+ "|(?:(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4]" // or ip address
+ "[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])))"
+ "(?:\\:\\d{1,5})?)" // plus option port number
+ "(\\/(?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9\\;\\/\\?\\:\\@\\&\\=\\#\\~"  // plus option query params
+ "\\-\\.\\+\\!\\*\\'\\(\\)\\,\\_])|(?:\\%[a-fA-F0-9]{2}))*)?"
+ "(?:\\b|$)";

If you want to be really fancy, you can test for email addresses as well. The regex for email addresses is:

/[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})+/gi

PS: The top level domains supported by above regex are current as of June 2007. For an up to date list you'll need to check https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt.

Answer 5

First you need a good regex that matches urls. This is hard to do. See here, here and here:

...almost anything is a valid URL. There are some punctuation rules for splitting it up. Absent any punctuation, you still have a valid URL.

Check the RFC carefully and see if you can construct an "invalid" URL. The rules are very flexible.

For example ::::: is a valid URL. The path is ":::::". A pretty stupid filename, but a valid filename.

Also, ///// is a valid URL. The netloc ("hostname") is "". The path is "///". Again, stupid. Also valid. This URL normalizes to "///" which is the equivalent.

Something like "bad://///worse/////" is perfectly valid. Dumb but valid.

Anyway, this answer is not meant to give you the best regex but rather a proof of how to do the string wrapping inside the text, with JavaScript.

OK so lets just use this one: /(https?:\/\/[^\s]+)/g

Again, this is a bad regex. It will have many false positives. However it's good enough for this example.

function urlify(text) {
  var urlRegex = /(https?:\/\/[^\s]+)/g;
  return text.replace(urlRegex, function(url) {
    return '<a href="' + url + '">' + url + '</a>';
  })
  // or alternatively
  // return text.replace(urlRegex, '<a href="$1">$1</a>')
}

var text = 'Find me at http://www.example.com and also at http://stackoverflow.com';
var html = urlify(text);

console.log(html)

// html now looks like:
// "Find me at <a href="http://www.example.com">http://www.example.com</a> and also at <a href="http://stackoverflow.com">http://stackoverflow.com</a>"

So in sum try:

$$('#pad dl dd').each(function(element) {
    element.innerHTML = urlify(element.innerHTML);
});

Answer 6

Generic Object Oriented Solution

For people like me that use frameworks like angular that don't allow manipulating DOM directly, I created a function that takes a string and returns an array of url/plainText objects that can be used to create any UI representation that you want.

URL regex

For URL matching I used (slightly adapted) h0mayun regex: /(?:(?:https?:\/\/)|(?:www\.))[^\s]+/g

My function also drops punctuation characters from the end of a URL like . and , that I believe more often will be actual punctuation than a legit URL ending (but it could be! This is not rigorous science as other answers explain well) For that I apply the following regex onto matched URLs /^(.+?)([.,?!'"]*)$/.

Typescript code

    export function urlMatcherInText(inputString: string): UrlMatcherResult[] {
        if (! inputString) return [];

        const results: UrlMatcherResult[] = [];

        function addText(text: string) {
            if (! text) return;

            const result = new UrlMatcherResult();
            result.type = 'text';
            result.value = text;
            results.push(result);
        }

        function addUrl(url: string) {
            if (! url) return;

            const result = new UrlMatcherResult();
            result.type = 'url';
            result.value = url;
            results.push(result);
        }

        const findUrlRegex = /(?:(?:https?:\/\/)|(?:www\.))[^\s]+/g;
        const cleanUrlRegex = /^(.+?)([.,?!'"]*)$/;

        let match: RegExpExecArray;
        let indexOfStartOfString = 0;

        do {
            match = findUrlRegex.exec(inputString);

            if (match) {
                const text = inputString.substr(indexOfStartOfString, match.index - indexOfStartOfString);
                addText(text);

                var dirtyUrl = match[0];
                var urlDirtyMatch = cleanUrlRegex.exec(dirtyUrl);
                addUrl(urlDirtyMatch[1]);
                addText(urlDirtyMatch[2]);

                indexOfStartOfString = match.index + dirtyUrl.length;
            }
        }
        while (match);

        const remainingText = inputString.substr(indexOfStartOfString, inputString.length - indexOfStartOfString);
        addText(remainingText);

        return results;
    }

    export class UrlMatcherResult {
        public type: 'url' | 'text'
        public value: string
    }