Add http(s) to URL if it's not there?

Question

I\'m using this regex in my model to validate an URL submitted by the user. I don\'t want to force the user to type the http part, but would like to add it myself if it\'s n

Answer 1

Don't do this with a regex, use URI.parse to pull it apart and then see if there is a scheme on the URL:

u = URI.parse('/pancakes')
if(!u.scheme)
  # prepend http:// and try again
elsif(%w{http https}.include?(u.scheme))
  # you're okay
else
  # you've been give some other kind of
  # URL and might want to complain about it
end

Using the URI library for this also makes it easy to clean up any stray nonsense (such as userinfo) that someone might try to put into a URL.