Extracting for URL from string using regex

Question

I want to extract the first valid URL in a string, which can be anywhere between characters and whitespace

I have tried with the following

...
urlRegex: /^(http[s]?:\/\/.*?\/[a-zA-Z-_]+.*)$/,
...
var input = event.target.value // <--- some string;
var url = input.match(this.urlRegex);

Problem is url returns the whole string when it finds a url, instead of returning just the part of the string matching the regex

Example The string

https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/there-s-no-blueprint-26f6a2fbb99c random stuff sd

returns

["https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/there-s-no-blueprint-26f6a2fbb99c random stuff sd", "https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/there-s-no-blueprint-26f6a2fbb99c random stuff sd", index: 0, input: "https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/there-s-no-blueprint-26f6a2fbb99c random stuff sd"]

How can this be achieved?

• zb': what about not http(s):// urls ? ftp:// etc ?
• Braj: can URL contains all type of characters along with special characters?
• Avatar: See here stackoverflow.com/q/6038061/1066234

Answer 1

Your regex is incorrect.

Correct regex for extracting URl : /(https?:\/\/[^ ]*)/

Check out this fiddle.

Here is the snippet.

var urlRegex = /(https?:\/\/[^ ]*)/;
var input = "https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/there-s-no-blueprint-26f6a2fbb99c random stuff sd";
var url = input.match(urlRegex)[1];
alert(url);

• Tarlen: no that only returns the part of the url after the /, and only the first segment. I want the whole URL
• Shrinivas Shukla: That's because you made wrong. Make group like this... /^(http[s]?:\/\/.*?\/[a-zA-Z-_]+.*)$/
• Shrinivas Shukla: Updated my answer. Try it.
• Avatar: This also matches the next line when the URL is at the end of the previous line.

Answer 2

• You haven't included digits in your regex as part of URL.
• Assuming URL starts from the beginning of the string

Live Demo with regex explanation on left side.

Regex explanation

var regex = /^(https?:\/\/[^/]+(\/[\w-]+)+)/;
var str = 'https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/there-s-no-blueprint-26f6a2fbb99c random stuff sd';
var url = str.match(regex)[0];
document.write(url);

Answer 3

That's because the match result holds the whole string first that matches, then the groups. I guess you want the group, so you can do this:

url[1]

Here's a fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/jgt8u6pc/1/

var urlRegex = /^http[s]?:\/\/.*?\/([a-zA-Z-_]+).*$/;
var input = 'http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31760030/extracting-for-url-from-string-using-regex' // <--- some string;
var url = input.match(urlRegex);
$('#one').text(url[0]);
$('#two').text(url[1]);

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="one"></div>
<div id="two"></div>