Validate URL with or without protocol - php

Question

Hi I would like to validate this following urls, so they all would pass with or without http/www part in them as long as there is TLD present like .com, .net, .org etc..
Valid URLs Should Be:
http://www.domain.com
http://domain.com
https://www.domain.com
https://domain.com
www.domain.com
domain.com
To support long tlds:
http://www.domain.com.uk
http://domain.com.uk
https://www.domain.com.uk
https://domain.com.uk
www.domain.com.uk
domain.com.uk
To support dashes (-):
http://www.domain-here.com
http://domain-here.com
https://www.domain-here.com
https://domain-here.com
www.domain-here.com
domain-here.com
Also to support numbers in domains:
http://www.domain1-test-here.com
http://domain1-test-here.com
https://www.domain1-test-here.com
https://domain1-test-here.com
www.domain1-test-here.com
domain-here.com
Also maybe allow even IPs:
127.127.127.127
(but this is extra!)
Also allow dashes (-), forgot to mantion that =)
I've found many functions that validate one or another but not both at same time.
If any one knows good regex for it, please share. Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

For url validation perfect solution.
Above Answer is right but not work on all domains like .me, .it, .in
so please user below for url match:
$pattern = '/(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+?\.(?:[a-zA-Z])|\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)/';
if(preg_match($pattern, "http://website.in"))
{
echo "valid";
}else{
echo "invalid";
}

Answer 2

When you ignore the path part and look for the domain part only, a simple rule would be
(?:https?://)?(?:[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+?\.(?:com|net|org|gov|edu|mil)|\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)
If you want to support country TLDs as well you must either supply a complete (current) list or append |.. to the TLD part.
With preg_match you must wrap it between some delimiters
$pattern = ';(?:https?://)?(?:[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+?\.(?:com|net|org|gov|edu|mil)|\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+);';
$index = preg_match($pattern, $url);
Usually, you use /. But in this case, slashes are part of the pattern, so I have chosen some other delimiter. Otherwise I must escape the slashes with \
$pattern = '/(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+?\.(?:com|net|org|gov|edu|mil)|\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)/';

Answer 3

Don't use a regular expression. Not every problem that involves strings needs to use regexes.
Don't write your own URL validator. URL validation is a solved problem, and there is existing code that has already been written, debugged and testing. In fact, it comes standard with PHP.
Look at PHP's built-in filtering functionality: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/book.filter.php

Answer 4

I think you can use flags for filter_vars.
For FILTER_VALIDATE_URL there is several flags available:
FILTER_FLAG_SCHEME_REQUIRED Requires the URL to contain a scheme
part.
FILTER_FLAG_HOST_REQUIRED Requires the URL to contain a host
part.
FILTER_FLAG_PATH_REQUIRED Requires the URL to contain a path
part.
FILTER_FLAG_QUERY_REQUIRED Requires the URL to contain a query
string.
FILTER_FLAG_SCHEME_REQUIRED and FILTER_FLAG_HOST_REQUIRED used by default.
Lets say you want to check for path part and do not want to check for scheme part, you can do something like this (falg is a bitmask):
filter_var($url, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL, ~FILTER_FLAG_SCHEME_REQUIRED | FILTER_FLAG_PATH_REQUIRED)