PHP URL verification and if not valid fix it

Question

I am trying to verify URLs. This is the code I have:

function isValidURL($url) 
{
    return preg_match('|^http(s)?://[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(:[0-9]+)?(/.*)?$|i', $url);
}

This code is working but now I am trying to work out how to add http:// or https:// if the URL is correct but is just missing the beginning http://

Please point me in the right direction.

complex857 · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-16 19:29:20Z

6

Use the filter functions, there's a FILTER_VALIDATE_URL for this.

$is_valid_url = filter_var($url, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL);

There's a bunch of options too, see here.

To detect if there's a missing http:// or not, just test your input without modifying it first, and try prepend it and test again if that fails.

answered Mar 16, 2013 at 19:29

complex857

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Comments

Rafee · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-16 19:48:50Z

3

You can use parse_url() to verify your url http://php.net/manual/en/function.parse-url.php

<?php

$url = "https://twitter.com?id=3232";
$url_info = parse_url($url);

echo "<pre>";
    print_r($url_info);
echo "</pre>";


?>

Output

Array
(
    [scheme] => https
    [host] => twitter.com
    [query] => id=3232
)

I believe you can even work with this function parse_url you will get lot of parameters easily and understandable format.

so your code will be

<?php

function isValidURL($url) {
    $varr = parse_url($url);
    if ($varr['scheme'] == 'https') {
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}
?>

Note : Url used above is not valid, its for testing purspose

answered Mar 16, 2013 at 19:48

Rafee

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Comments

HamZa · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-16 20:10:06Z

1

To fix the HTTP(s) issue with Regex, you may set http(s)?:// between parentheses and make it optional with ?:

var_dump(isValidURL("stackoverflow.com/questions/15453684/php-url-verification-and-if-not-valid-fix-it"));

function isValidURL($url) {
 return preg_match('|^(http(s)?://)?[a-z0-9-]+(.[a-z0-9-]+)*(:[0-9]+)?(/.*)?$|i', $url);
}

EDIT: Thanks to DCSoft, it seems that the above regex also validates something like fijsfsdufd, here's a quick fix, by adding a dot:

function isValidURL($url) {
 return preg_match('|^(http(s)?://)?[a-z0-9-]+\.(.[a-z0-9-]+)+(:[0-9]+)?(/.*)?$|i', $url);
}

This may be interesting.

edited Mar 16, 2013 at 20:10

answered Mar 16, 2013 at 19:34

HamZa

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5 Comments

DCSoft Over a year ago

The problem with this is it lets the user type in what ever they want e.g - asdsaasdsad and it would still count it as being a valid URL

DCSoft Over a year ago

Thank you, it works perfectly but would you say for time optimization, it would be better to run it as a JavaScript on the form and stop the user submitting it or would it be better to do it in the php script?

HamZa Over a year ago

@DCSoft Do it on both, never trust users input, they may just send it as HTTP/POST|GET request or disable JS

DCSoft Over a year ago

If I was going to do it as a javascript would the code be like - pastebin.com/aRPi7WHb

HamZa Over a year ago

If you're using HTML5, try also to look at the required attribute by using something like <input type="url" required="required">

SeanWM · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-16 19:33:46Z

1

You can use strpos as such:

if (strpos($url,'http://') === false){
    $url = 'http://'.$url;
}

edited Mar 16, 2013 at 19:33

user1592648

answered Mar 16, 2013 at 19:31

SeanWM

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Comments

Meloman · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-11 07:52:50Z

1

Based on @seanwm, here is a function that checks and fixes the URL.

PHP function

function fixUrl($url, $forceSSL = false) {

    if (strpos($url,'http://') === false 
    && strpos($url,'https://') === false) {

        if($forceSSL) {
            return 'https://'.$url;
        }

        return 'http://'.$url;
    }

    return $url;
}

Use

For http:// :

$url = fixUrl($url);

force to prepend https:// :

$url = fixUrl($url, true);

answered Dec 11, 2018 at 7:52

Meloman

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