C# code to linkify urls in a string

Question

Does anyone have any good c# code (and regular expressions) that will parse a string and \"linkify\" any urls that may be in the string?

Answer 1

protected string Linkify( string SearchText ) {
    // this will find links like:
    // http://www.mysite.com
    // as well as any links with other characters directly in front of it like:
    // href="http://www.mysite.com"
    // you can then use your own logic to determine which links to linkify
    Regex regx = new Regex( @"\b(((\S+)?)(@|mailto\:|(news|(ht|f)tp(s?))\://)\S+)\b", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase );
    SearchText = SearchText.Replace( " ", " " );
    MatchCollection matches = regx.Matches( SearchText );

    foreach ( Match match in matches ) {
        if ( match.Value.StartsWith( "http" ) ) { // if it starts with anything else then dont linkify -- may already be linked!
            SearchText = SearchText.Replace( match.Value, "" + match.Value + "" );
        }
    }

    return SearchText;
}