how to replace plain url with hyperlinks in html doc

Question

I am trying to replace plain link to hyperlink in an html document. and my logic is

private static final Pattern WEB_URL_PROTOCOL = Pattern.compile("(?i)http|https://");

StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
        if (text != null) {
            // Escape any inadvertent HTML in the text message
            text = EmailHtmlUtil.escapeCharacterToDisplay(text);
            // Find any embedded URL's and linkify
              Matcher m = Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher(text);


            while (m.find()) {
                int start = m.start();

                if (start == 0 || text.charAt(start - 1) != '@') {
                    String url = m.group();
                    Matcher proto = WEB_URL_PROTOCOL.matcher(url);
                    String link;
                    if (proto.find()) {
                        lower case protocol link.
                        link = proto.group().toLowerCase() + url.substring(proto.end());
                    } else {

                        link = "http://" + url;
                    }
                    String href = String.format("<a href=\"%s\">%s</a>", link, url);
                    m.appendReplacement(sb, href);
                }
                else {
                    m.appendReplacement(sb, "$0");
                }
            }
            m.appendTail(sb);
        }

This code is successfully find out all links in a html doc .but problem is it also find the hyperlink.So i want to exclude the hyperlinks and want to find only plain links for example it should exclude

<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="awbs://www.google.com" target="_BLANK">https://www.google.com</a> normal address https</p>

but plain link https://www.google.com should be replaced by a hyperlink

Edit if doc contain text like this - 1. https://www.yahoo.com

2. https://www.google.com normal address https

so here i want to replace https://www.yahoo.com with

<p class="MsoNormal"><a href = "https://www.yahoo.com>https://www.yahoo.com</a></p>

and it should not effect 2 at all .

Stephan · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-29 15:53:18Z

1

I would recommand you to use Jsoup here.

Sample code

String text = "<html><head></head><body><a href='http://google.com'>Don't change this link</a> Change this: http://yahoo.com foo.com</body></html>";
Document d = Jsoup.parse(text);
String newHtmlCode = "";
String oldHtmlCode = d.outerHtml();
List<TextNode> textNodes = d.body().textNodes();

Matcher m = Patterns.WEB_URL.matcher("");
for (TextNode textNode : textNodes) {
    m.reset(textNode.text());

    String fragment = "";
    while (m.find()) {
        fragment = m.replaceAll("<a href=\"\\*\\*\\*$1\">$1</a>");
        textNode.replaceWith(new Element(Tag.valueOf("span"),"").html(fragment));
    }

    newHtmlCode = d.outerHtml().replaceAll("\"\\Q***\\E(?!https?://)", "\"http://").replaceAll("\"\\Q***\\E(https?://)", "\"$1");
}

System.out.println("BEFORE:\n\n" + oldHtmlCode);
System.out.println("----------------------------");
System.out.println("AFTER:\n\n" + newHtmlCode);

Output

BEFORE:

<html>
 <head></head>
 <body>
  <a href="http://google.com">Don't change this link</a> Change this: http://yahoo.com foo.com
 </body>
</html>
----------------------------
AFTER:

<html>
 <head></head>
 <body>
  <a href="http://google.com">Don't change this link</a>
  <span> Change this: <a href="http://yahoo.com">http://yahoo.com</a> <a href="http://foo.com">foo.com</a></span>
 </body>
</html>

edited Jan 29, 2014 at 15:53

answered Jan 29, 2014 at 12:35

Stephan

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3 Comments

Subham Over a year ago

is it possible do without using parsers. i am looking for regex.

Stephan Over a year ago

@Subham Check my answer I use a regex for finding the plain links. Jsoup is pretty fast.

Stephan Over a year ago

@Subham Check my new answer.

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