How to check if a URL is valid

Question

How can I check if a string is a valid URL?

For example:

http://hello.it => yes
http:||bra.ziz, => no

If this is a valid URL

Answer 1

This is a little bit old but here is how I do it. Use Ruby's URI module to parse the URL. If it can be parsed then it's a valid URL. (But that doesn't mean accessible.)

URI supports many schemes, plus you can add custom schemes yourself:

irb> uri = URI.parse "http://hello.it" rescue nil
=> #

irb> uri.instance_values
=> {"fragment"=>nil,
 "registry"=>nil,
 "scheme"=>"http",
 "query"=>nil,
 "port"=>80,
 "path"=>"",
 "host"=>"hello.it",
 "password"=>nil,
 "user"=>nil,
 "opaque"=>nil}

irb> uri = URI.parse "http:||bra.ziz" rescue nil
=> nil


irb> uri = URI.parse "ssh://hello.it:5888" rescue nil
=> #
[26] pry(main)> uri.instance_values
=> {"fragment"=>nil,
 "registry"=>nil,
 "scheme"=>"ssh",
 "query"=>nil,
 "port"=>5888,
 "path"=>"",
 "host"=>"hello.it",
 "password"=>nil,
 "user"=>nil,
 "opaque"=>nil}

See the documentation for more information about the URI module.