Last Updated: February 25, 2016

Validate URLs in Rails

Take this code:

class UrlValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
 def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
 record.errors[attribute] << (options[:message] || "must be a valid URL") unless url_valid?(value) 
 end

 # a URL may be technically well-formed but may 
 # not actually be valid, so this checks for both.
 def url_valid?(url)
 url = URI.parse(url) rescue false
 url.kind_of?(URI::HTTP) || url.kind_of?(URI::HTTPS)
 end 
end

Save it in your app directory so it's autoloaded, eg:

app/validators/url_validator.rb

And use it in your model thus:

class Something < ActiveRecord::Base
 validates :link, url: true
end

Credit to StackOverflow for pointing me in the right direction.

Written by Lee Machin

Say Thanks

Respond

Related protips

HTTP Posts in Ruby

167.2K

Centered Text And Images In Github Markdown

143.2K

Take a photo of yourself every time you commit

112.3K

6 Responses

Add your response

ncherro

thanks!

over 1 year ago ·

kitsched

Great little validator. Thanks for your effort.
One thing's missing though, i18n.

over 1 year ago ·

zigomir

Nice. But the problem is that it allows http:google.com, http:/google.com, http:///google.com and such...

over 1 year ago ·

irvinfan

It also allows http://http://www.google.com

over 1 year ago ·

knightq

url.kind_of?(URI::HTTP)
should be sufficient for both 'http' and 'https' case.

over 1 year ago ·

aitherios

Just an idea:

require 'uri'

class UrlValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
 def validate_each(record, attribute, value)
 unless value =~ /^#{URI::regexp}$/
 record.errors[attribute] << (options[:message] || "is not an url")
 end
 end
end

over 1 year ago ·