Regular Expression not matching a string as expected

Question

I have this regular expression:

^((([hH][tT][tT][pP][sS]?|[fF][tT][pP])\:\/\/)?([\w\.\-]+(\:[\w\.\&%\$\-]+)*@)?((([^\s\(\)\<\>\\\""\.\[\]\,@;:]+)(\.[^\s\(\)\<\>\\\""\.\[\]\,@;:]+)*(\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}))|((([01]?\d{1,2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.){3}([01]?\d{1,2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])))(\b\:(6553[0-5]|655[0-2]\d|65[0-4]\d{2}|6[0-4]\d{3}|[1-5]\d{4}|[1-9]\d{0,3}|0)\b)?((\/[^\/][\w\.\,\?\'\\\/\+&%\$#\=~_\-@]*)*[^\.\,\?\""\'\(\)\[\]!;<>{}\s\x7F-\xFF])?)$

It works for the most part, but it doesn't match localhost:8888.

How can I modify this expression to match localhost:8888?

A collection of different URLs. It works, minus the string I mentioned in the OP. — keeehlan
– keeehlan, Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 20:56
Because that won't meet my requirements, nor did I ask about matching URIs. To be fair, my question was specific. — keeehlan
– keeehlan, Commented Oct 23, 2013 at 20:57

qJake · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-23 21:28:32Z

2

All you were missing was an optional (?) on the top-level domain.

^((([hH][tT][tT][pP][sS]?|[fF][tT][pP])\:\/\/)?([\w\.\-]+(\:[\w\.\&%\$\-]+)*@)?((([^\s\(\)\<\>\\\""\.\[\]\,@;:]+)(\.[^\s\(\)\<\>\\\""\.\[\]\,@;:]+)*(\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4})?)|((([01]?\d{1,2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.){3}([01]?\d{1,2}|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])))(\b\:(6553[0-5]|655[0-2]\d|65[0-4]\d{2}|6[0-4]\d{3}|[1-5]\d{4}|[1-9]\d{0,3}|0)\b)?((\/[^\/][\w\.\,\?\'\\\/\+&%\$#\=~_\-@]*)*[^\.\,\?\""\'\(\)\[\]!;<>{}\s\x7F-\xFF])?)$

Matches a few examples, including the one you want:

http://www.rexfiddle.net/6tWa1Wl

I would very strongly suggest that you use the built-in Uri class in .NET though, as it handles all of this parsing and validation for you (better than any regex ever could). It was designed to be versatile, there is very little you can't do with it if you're dealing with any sort of URI (as it appears you are), and I'm pretty sure it's going to be faster than Regex, too.

edited Oct 23, 2013 at 21:28

answered Oct 23, 2013 at 21:07

qJake

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3 Comments

Drake Clarris Over a year ago

+1 for using URI class. This is an elaborate and ugly Regex that I would hate to see in code if I had to debug it.

keeehlan Over a year ago

How would you recommend that I use the Uri class when validating an ASP.Net MVC 4 ViewModel property? My current solution uses [RegularExpression("...")] as a property attribute.

qJake Over a year ago

Assuming you are using Data Annotations, there is a Url attribute you can use to validate URLs. If that doesn't suit your needs, write your own data validator (There are lots of tutorials on Google about how to do this).

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