I found a regular expression that is suppose to capture URLs but it doesn't capture some URLs.
$("#links").change(function() { //var matches = new array(); var linksStr = $("#links").val(); var pattern = new RegExp("^(https?:\/\/)?([\da-z\.-]+)\.([a-z\.]{2,6})([\/\w \.-]*)*\/?$","g"); var matches = linksStr.match(pattern); for(var i = 0; i < matches.length; i++) { alert(matches[i]); } }) It doesn't capture this url (I need it to):
But it captures this
Several things:
The main reason it didn't work, is when passing strings to RegExp(), you need to slashify the slashes. So this:
"^(https?:\/\/)?([\da-z\.-]+)\.([a-z\.]{2,6})([\/\w \.-]*)*\/?$" Should be:
"^(https?:\/\/)?([\\da-z\\.-]+)\\.([a-z\\.]{2,6})([\/\\w \\.-]*)*\/?$"
Next, you said that FF reported, "Regular expression too complex". This suggests that linksStr is several lines of URL candidates.
Therefore, you also need to pass the m flag to RegExp().
The existing regex is blocking legitimate values, eg: "HTTP://STACKOVERFLOW.COM". So, also use the i flag with RegExp().
Whitespace always creeps in, especially in multiline values. Use a leading \s* and $.trim() to deal with it.
Relative links, eg /file/63075291/LlMlTL355-EN6-SU8S.rar are not allowed?
Putting it all together (except for item 5), it becomes:
var linksStr = "http://www.wupload.com/file/63075291/LlMlTL355-EN6-SU8S.rar \n" + " http://XXXupload.co.uk/fun.exe \n " + " WWW.Yupload.mil "; var pattern = new RegExp ( "^\\s*(https?:\/\/)?([\\da-z\\.-]+)\\.([a-z\\.]{2,6})([\/\\w \\.-]*)*\/?$" , "img" ); var matches = linksStr.match(pattern); for (var J = 0, L = matches.length; J < L; J++) { console.log ( $.trim (matches[J]) ); } Which yields:
http://www.wupload.com/file/63075291/LlMlTL355-EN6-SU8S.rar http://XXXupload.co.uk/fun.exe WWW.Yupload.mil
Why not do make: URLS = str.match(/https?:[^\s]+/ig);
(https?\:\/\/)([a-z\/\.0-9A-Z_-\%\&\=]*) this will locate any url in text
alert("http://www.wupload.com/file/63075291/LlMlTL355-EN6-SU8S.rar".match(/^(https?:\/\/)?([\da-z\.-]+)\.([a-z\.]{2,6})([\/\w \.-]*)*\/?$/g))