How to create URL links from strings

Question

I'm using:

var exp = /(\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|])/ig;
return text.replace(exp,"<a href='$1' target='internet'>$1</a>");

to turn, for example http://www.example.com into a clickable link. This works well!

Does anyone know how to expand this expression to capture also www.example.com (i.e without http://)?

@Ash: Seems he wants to convert the strings http://www.example.com and www.example.com to <a> tags. — gen_Eric
– gen_Eric, Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:52
yes - am trying to convert example.com and www.example.com to <a> tags. — user884899
– user884899, Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:57
This is nice in principle, but it won't be easy... Depending on your source, you'll probably end up getting a lot of false positives. — NullUserException
– NullUserException, Commented Aug 12, 2011 at 21:59

Jason Gennaro · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-12 22:46:27Z

1

This worked for me:

Add a ( )* here

((https?|ftp|file):\/\/)*

http://jsfiddle.net/jasongennaro/NBWyr/

Basically zero or more of the items in ()

answered Aug 12, 2011 at 22:46

Jason Gennaro

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3 Comments

styfle Over a year ago

I tried that with var text = 'http://www.google.com is a cool website, but www.yahoo.com is not.'; and it didn't work properly. More text was highlighted than should have been.

Jason Gennaro Over a year ago

@styfle. As far as I know, this regex is meant to work on addresses only, not sentences. I could be wrong, though.

styfle Over a year ago

@Jason I figured it would parse a block of text like a comment on a website, then find and replace links in that block.

c0deNinja · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-12 22:45:51Z

0

try this regex:

(?<http>(http:[/][/]|www.)([a-z]|[A-Z]|[0-9]|[/.]|[~])*)

answered Aug 12, 2011 at 22:45

c0deNinja

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1 Comment

user884899 Over a year ago

Thanks. I'm having problems with using this in a function: function replaceWWW(text) { var exp = (?<http>(http:[/][/]|www.)([a-z]|[A-Z]|[0-9]|[/.]|[~])*)/ig; return text.replace(exp,"<a href='$1' target='internet'>$1</a>"); } Maybe I have missed a escape character?

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