Url validation with regex for old php version

Question

Note: I'm using an older PHP version so FILTER_VALIDATE_URL is not available at this time.

After many many searches I am still unable to find the exact answer that can cover all URL structure possibilities but at the end I'm gonna use this way:

I'm using the following function

1) Function to get proper scheme

function convertUrl ($url){
    $pattern = '#^http[s]?://#i';
    if(preg_match($pattern, $url) == 1) { // this url has proper scheme
        return $url;
    } else {
        return 'http://' . $url;
    }
}

2) Conditional to check if it is a URL or not

if (preg_match("/\b(?:(?:https?|ftp):\/\/|www\.)[-a-z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|]/i", $url)) {
  echo "URL is valid";
}else {
  echo "URL is invalid<br>";
}

Guess What!? It works so perfect for all of these possibilities:

$url = "google.com";
$url = "www.google.com";
$url = "http://google.com";
$url = "http://www.google.com";
$url = "https://google.com";
$url = "https://www.codgoogleekarate.com";
$url = "subdomain.google.com";
$url = "https://subdomain.google.com";

But still have this edge case

$url = "blahblahblahblah";

The function convertUrl($url) will convert this to $url = "http://blahblahblahblah"; then the regex will consider it as valid URL while it isn't!!

How can I edit it so that it won't pass a URL with this structure http://blahblahblahblah

adesh · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-19 08:56:23Z

1

If you want to validate internet url's, add a check for including a dot (.) character in your reg-ex.

Note: http://blahblahblah is a valid url as is http://localhost

answered Oct 19, 2013 at 8:56

adesh

1604 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Reham Fahmy Over a year ago

Yes http://localhost is valid but since my website is online so why i do allow for http://localhost .. thanks for your answer and i do really need to edit the regex so it can check if there is . or not.

suresh gopal · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-19 09:06:06Z

0

Try this:

if (preg_match("/^(([\w]+:)?\/\/)?(([\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})+(:([\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})+)?@)?([\d\w][-\d\w]{0,253}[\d\w]\.)+[\w]{2,4}(:[\d]+)?(\/([-+_~.\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})*)*(\?(&?([-+_~.\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})=?)*)?(#([-+_~.\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})*)?$/", $url)) {
  echo "URL is valid";
}else {
  echo "URL is invalid<br>";
}

answered Oct 19, 2013 at 9:06

suresh gopal

3,1446 gold badges29 silver badges58 bronze badges

3 Comments

pguardiario Over a year ago

This is baloney. I can get the same results with /\./. It doesn't mean the url is valid.

Reham Fahmy Over a year ago

@pguardiario test it with convertUrl function i've mention in my question, i've tested in almost all possibilities and it did the work perfect.

pguardiario Over a year ago

Right, but a stopped clock is also right sometimes. The fact that you're unable to tell the difference doesn't make this a correct answer.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Url validation with regex for old php version

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

3 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related