Java : replacing text URL with clickable HTML link

Question

I am trying to do some stuff with replacing String containing some URL to a browser compatible linked URL.

My initial String looks like this :

\"hell         


        

Answer 1

public static String textToHtmlConvertingURLsToLinks(String text) {
    if (text == null) {
        return text;
    }

    String escapedText = HtmlUtils.htmlEscape(text);

    return escapedText.replaceAll("(\\A|\\s)((http|https|ftp|mailto):\\S+)(\\s|\\z)",
        "$1$2$4");
}

There may be better REGEXs out there, but this does the trick as long as there is white space after the end of the URL or the URL is at the end of the text. This particular implementation also uses org.springframework.web.util.HtmlUtils to escape any other HTML that may have been entered.