Check if a JavaScript string is a URL

Question

Is there a way in JavaScript to check if a string is a URL?

RegExes are excluded because the URL is most likely written like stackoverflow; that is to s

Answer 1

2020 Update. To expand on both excellent answerd from @iamnewton and @Fernando Chavez Herrera I've started to see @ being used in the path of URLs.

So the updated regex is:

RegExp('(https?:\\/\\/)?((([a-z\\d]([a-z\\d-]*[a-z\\d])*)\\.)+[a-z]{2,}|((\\d{1,3}\\.){3}\\d{1,3}))(\\:\\d+)?(\\/[-a-z\\d%_.~+@]*)*(\\?[;&a-z\\d%_.~+=-]*)?(\\#[-a-z\\d_]*)?$', 'i');

If you want to allow it in the query string and hash, use:

RegExp('(https?:\\/\\/)?((([a-z\\d]([a-z\\d-]*[a-z\\d])*)\\.)+[a-z]{2,}|((\\d{1,3}\\.){3}\\d{1,3}))(\\:\\d+)?(\\/[-a-z\\d%_.~+@]*)*(\\?[;&a-z\\d%_.~+=-@]*)?(\\#[-a-z\\d_@]*)?$', 'i');

That being said, I'm not sure if there's a whitepaper rule disallowing @ in the query string or hash.

Answer 2

Here's just a very simple check to make sure there's a valid protocol, and the domain extension must be two or more characters.

is_valid_url = ( $url ) => {

    let $url_object = null;

    try {
        $url_object = new URL( $url );
    } catch ( $error ) {
        return false;
    }

    const $protocol = $url_object.protocol;
    const $protocol_position = $url.lastIndexOf( $protocol );
    const $domain_extension_position = $url.lastIndexOf( '.' );

    return (
        $protocol_position === 0 &&
        [ 'http:', 'https:' ].indexOf( $protocol ) !== - 1 &&
        $domain_extension_position > 2 && $url.length - $domain_extension_position > 2
    );

};

Answer 3

Rely on a library: https://www.npmjs.com/package/valid-url

import { isWebUri } from 'valid-url';
// ...
if (!isWebUri(url)) {
    return "Not a valid url.";
}

Answer 4

this working with me

function isURL(str) {
  var regex = /(http|https):\/\/(\w+:{0,1}\w*)?(\S+)(:[0-9]+)?(\/|\/([\w#!:.?+=&%!\-\/]))?/;
  var pattern = new RegExp(regex); 
return pattern.test(str);
}

Answer 5

One function that I have been using to validate a URL "string" is:

var matcher = /^(?:\w+:)?\/\/([^\s\.]+\.\S{2}|localhost[\:?\d]*)\S*$/;

function isUrl(string){
  return matcher.test(string);
}

This function will return a boolean whether the string is a URL.

Examples:

isUrl("https://google.com");     // true
isUrl("http://google.com");      // true
isUrl("http://google.de");       // true
isUrl("//google.de");            // true
isUrl("google.de");              // false
isUrl("http://google.com");      // true
isUrl("http://localhost");       // true
isUrl("https://sdfasd");         // false

Answer 6

A related question with an answer:

Javascript regex URL matching

Or this Regexp from Devshed:

function validURL(str) {
  var pattern = new RegExp('^(https?:\\/\\/)?'+ // protocol
    '((([a-z\\d]([a-z\\d-]*[a-z\\d])*)\\.)+[a-z]{2,}|'+ // domain name
    '((\\d{1,3}\\.){3}\\d{1,3}))'+ // OR ip (v4) address
    '(\\:\\d+)?(\\/[-a-z\\d%_.~+]*)*'+ // port and path
    '(\\?[;&a-z\\d%_.~+=-]*)?'+ // query string
    '(\\#[-a-z\\d_]*)?$','i'); // fragment locator
  return !!pattern.test(str);
}