CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iphoneobjective-cregexios4regexkitlite
Idan
Idan

Reputation: 5817

iPhone - Reg Exp for url validity

I have a chat view, where users can send urls to one another. In case of a url, I want to let the user press on the link and open a web view.

I'm using IFTweetLabel which uses RegexKitLite. Currently the only support available is if the url starts with http/https. I want to support links without the http, for example : www.nytimes.com , and even without the "www" , nytimes.com. (and bunch of other extentions).

This is the http/s prefix reg exp :

@"([hH][tT][tT][pP][sS]?:\\/\\/[^ ,'\">\\]\\)]*[^\\. ,'\">\\]\\)])

Can someone tell me the other regular expressions I need to answer my other requirements.

I tried using This one, but adding it to objective c code generates a lot of issues.

Thanks

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1426

Answers (3)

johne
johne

Reputation: 6770

The following is John Grubers URL Matching Regex:

(?i)\b(?:[a-z][\w-]+:(?:/{1,3}|[a-z0-9%])|www\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\))+(?:\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:'".,<>?«»“”‘’])

The following is a regex I came up with by blending a few other regexes I had around and a good chunk of Grubers regex:

(?i)\b(?:(?:[a-z][\w\-]+://(?:\S+?(?::\S+?)?\@)?)|(?:(?:[a-z0-9\-]+\.)+[a-z]{2,4}))(?:[^\s()<>]+|\((?:[^\s()<>]+|(?:\([^\s()<>]*\)))*\))*(?<![\s`!()\[\]{};:'".,<>?«»“”‘’])

The following is a sample program that demonstrates, via RegexKitLite, what each regex matches against the sample text of:

Did you see http://www.stackoverflow.com? Or http://www.stackoverflow.com/?

And then there is www.stackoverflow.com/, along with www.stackoverflow.com/index.

Maybe something like stackoverflow.com with extra stackoverflow.com? Or "stackoverflow.com"?

Perhaps jobs.stackoverflow.com, or 'http://twitter.com/#!/CHOCKENBERRY', the CHOCKLOCK!!

File @file:///Users/johne/rkl/rkl.html#RegexKitLiteCookbook?

Maybe http://www.yahoo.com/index///i.html! http://www.yahoo.com/////xyz.html?!

The code:

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "RegexKitLite.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
  NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

  NSString *urlRegex = @"(?i)\\b(?:(?:[a-z][\\w\\-]+://(?:\\S+?(?::\\S+?)?\\@)?)|(?:(?:[a-z0-9\\-]+\\.)+[a-z]{2,4}))(?:[^\\s()<>]+|\\((?:[^\\s()<>]+|(?:\\([^\\s()<>]*\\)))*\\))*(?<![\\s`!()\\[\\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’])";

  // John Gruber's URL matching regex from http://daringfireball.net/2010/07/improved_regex_for_matching_urls
  NSString *gruberURLRegex = @"(?i)\\b(?:[a-z][\\w-]+:(?:/{1,3}|[a-z0-9%])|www\\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}/)(?:[^\\s()<>]+|\\(([^\\s()<>]+|(\\([^\\s()<>]+\\)))*\\))+(?:\\(([^\\s()<>]+|(\\([^\\s()<>]+\\)))*\\)|[^\\s`!()\\[\\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’])";

  NSString *urlString = @"Did you see http://www.stackoverflow.com?  Or http://www.stackoverflow.com/?\n\nAnd then there is www.stackoverflow.com/, along with www.stackoverflow.com/index.\n\nMaybe something like stackoverflow.com with extra stackoverflow.com?  Or \"stackoverflow.com\"?\n\nPerhaps jobs.stackoverflow.com, or 'http://twitter.com/#!/CHOCKENBERRY', the CHOCKLOCK!!\n\nFile @file:///Users/johne/rkl/rkl.html#RegexKitLiteCookbook?\n\nMaybe http://www.yahoo.com/index///i.html!  http://www.yahoo.com/////xyz.html?!";

  NSLog(@"String :\n\n%@\n\n", urlString);

  NSLog(@"Matches: %@\n", [urlString componentsMatchedByRegex:urlRegex]);

  NSLog(@"Gruber URL Regex Matches: %@\n", [urlString componentsMatchedByRegex:gruberURLRegex]);

  [pool release]; pool = NULL;
  return(0);
}

Compile with:

shell% gcc -o url url.m RegexKitLite.m -framework Foundation -licucore

When run:

shell% ./url
2011-05-27 20:32:58.204 url[25520:903] String :

Did you see http://www.stackoverflow.com?  Or http://www.stackoverflow.com/?

And then there is www.stackoverflow.com/, along with www.stackoverflow.com/index.

Maybe something like stackoverflow.com with extra stackoverflow.com?  Or "stackoverflow.com"?

Perhaps jobs.stackoverflow.com, or 'http://twitter.com/#!/CHOCKENBERRY', the CHOCKLOCK!!

File @file:///Users/johne/rkl/rkl.html#RegexKitLiteCookbook?

Maybe http://www.yahoo.com/index///i.html!  http://www.yahoo.com/////xyz.html?!

2011-05-27 20:32:58.211 url[25520:903] Matches: (
    "http://www.stackoverflow.com",
    "http://www.stackoverflow.com/",
    "www.stackoverflow.com/",
    "www.stackoverflow.com/index",
    "stackoverflow.com",
    "stackoverflow.com",
    "stackoverflow.com",
    "jobs.stackoverflow.com",
    "http://twitter.com/#!/CHOCKENBERRY",
    "file:///Users/johne/rkl/rkl.html#RegexKitLiteCookbook",
    "http://www.yahoo.com/index///i.html",
    "http://www.yahoo.com/////xyz.html"
)
2011-05-27 20:32:58.213 url[25520:903] Gruber URL Regex Matches: (
    "http://www.stackoverflow.com",
    "http://www.stackoverflow.com/",
    "www.stackoverflow.com/",
    "www.stackoverflow.com/index",
    "http://twitter.com/#!/CHOCKENBERRY",
    "file:///Users/johne/rkl/rkl.html#RegexKitLiteCookbook",
    "http://www.yahoo.com/index///i.html",
    "http://www.yahoo.com/////xyz.html"
)

EDIT 2011/05/27: Made a minor change to the regex to fix a problem where it wasn't matching ( ) parenthesis correctly.

EDIT 2011/05/27: Found some additional corner cases that the regex above didn't handle well. Updated regex:

(?i)\b(?:[a-z][\w\-]+://(?:\S+?(?::\S+?)?\@)?)?(?:(?:(?<!:/|\.)(?:(?:[a-z0-9\-]+\.)+[a-z]{2,4}(?![a-z]))|(?<=://)/))(?:(?:[^\s()<>]+|\((?:[^\s()<>]+|(?:\([^\s()<>]*\)))*\))*)(?<![\s`!()\[\]{};:'".,<>?«»“”‘’])

... as an Obj-C string:

@"(?i)\\b(?:[a-z][\\w\\-]+://(?:\\S+?(?::\\S+?)?\\@)?)?(?:(?:(?<!:/|\\.)(?:(?:[a-z0-9\\-]+\\.)+[a-z]{2,4}(?![a-z]))|(?<=://)/))(?:(?:[^\\s()<>]+|\\((?:[^\\s()<>]+|(?:\\([^\\s()<>]*\\)))*\\))*)(?<![\\s`!()\\[\\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’])";

The OP also asked for how to make sure the trailing TLD was "valid". Here's the same regex, in Obj-C string form, with all the the currently valid TLDs (as of 2011/05/27):

@"(?i)\\b(?:[a-z][\\w\\-]+://(?:\\S+?(?::\\S+?)?\\@)?)?(?:(?:(?<!:/|\\.)(?:(?:[a-z0-9\\-]+\\.)+(?:(ac|ad|ae|aero|af|ag|ai|al|am|an|ao|aq|ar|arpa|as|asia|at|au|aw|ax|az|ba|bb|bd|be|bf|bg|bh|bi|biz|bj|bm|bn|bo|br|bs|bt|bv|bw|by|bz|ca|cat|cc|cd|cf|cg|ch|ci|ck|cl|cm|cn|co|com|coop|cr|cu|cv|cx|cy|cz|de|dj|dk|dm|do|dz|ec|edu|ee|eg|er|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fk|fm|fo|fr|ga|gb|gd|ge|gf|gg|gh|gi|gl|gm|gn|gov|gp|gq|gr|gs|gt|gu|gw|gy|hk|hm|hn|hr|ht|hu|id|ie|il|im|in|info|int|io|iq|ir|is|it|je|jm|jo|jobs|jp|ke|kg|kh|ki|km|kn|kp|kr|kw|ky|kz|la|lb|lc|li|lk|lr|ls|lt|lu|lv|ly|ma|mc|md|me|mg|mh|mil|mk|ml|mm|mn|mo|mobi|mp|mq|mr|ms|mt|mu|museum|mv|mw|mx|my|mz|na|name|nc|ne|net|nf|ng|ni|nl|no|np|nr|nu|nz|om|org|pa|pe|pf|pg|ph|pk|pl|pm|pn|pr|pro|ps|pt|pw|py|qa|re|ro|rs|ru|rw|sa|sb|sc|sd|se|sg|sh|si|sj|sk|sl|sm|sn|so|sr|st|su|sv|sy|sz|tc|td|tel|tf|tg|th|tj|tk|tl|tm|tn|to|tp|tr|travel|tt|tv|tw|tz|ua|ug|uk|us|uy|uz|va|vc|ve|vg|vi|vn|vu|wf|ws|xn--0zwm56d|xn--11b5bs3a9aj6g|xn--3e0b707e|xn--45brj9c|xn--80akhbyknj4f|xn--90a3ac|xn--9t4b11yi5a|xn--clchc0ea0b2g2a9gcd|xn--deba0ad|xn--fiqs8s|xn--fiqz9s|xn--fpcrj9c3d|xn--fzc2c9e2c|xn--g6w251d|xn--gecrj9c|xn--h2brj9c|xn--hgbk6aj7f53bba|xn--hlcj6aya9esc7a|xn--j6w193g|xn--jxalpdlp|xn--kgbechtv|xn--kprw13d|xn--kpry57d|xn--lgbbat1ad8j|xn--mgbaam7a8h|xn--mgbayh7gpa|xn--mgbbh1a71e|xn--mgbc0a9azcg|xn--mgberp4a5d4ar|xn--o3cw4h|xn--ogbpf8fl|xn--p1ai|xn--pgbs0dh|xn--s9brj9c|xn--wgbh1c|xn--wgbl6a|xn--xkc2al3hye2a|xn--xkc2dl3a5ee0h|xn--yfro4i67o|xn--ygbi2ammx|xn--zckzah|xxx|ye|yt|za|zm|zw))(?![a-z]))|(?<=://)/))(?:(?:[^\\s()<>]+|\\((?:[^\\s()<>]+|(?:\\([^\\s()<>]*\\)))*\\))*)(?<![\\s`!()\\[\\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’])";

Upvotes: 6

Dave DeLong
Dave DeLong

Reputation: 243156

You don't want to use a regular expression for this.

You want an NSDataDetector, and it'll find them all for you.

Upvotes: 3

joar
joar

Reputation: 15897

This will match both http://example.org and www.example.org.

@"(([hH][tT][tT][pP][sS]?:\\/\\/|www\\.)[^ ,'\">\\]\\)]*\\.[^\\. ,'\">\\]\\)]{2,6})

Although i added a "match group", so check the match/search result returned by the RegExp so the right parameters are re-inserted in the right place.

If you could post the entire code snippet, it would be easier.

RegExp explanation:

(
    (
        [hH][tT][tT][pP][sS]?:\/\/    # Match HTTP/http (and hTtP :)
        |                             # OR
        www\.                         # www<literal DOT>
    )
    [^ ,'\">\]\)]*                    # Match at least 1 character that are not any of space, comma, apostrophe, quotation mark, "more than", "right square bracket", "right parenthese"
    \.                                # Match <literal DOT>
    [^\. ,'\">\]\)]{2,6}              # Match 2-6 characters that are not any of dot, space, comma, apostrophe, quotation mark, "more than", "right square bracket", "right parenthese"
)

Upvotes: 3

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