URL regex Java

URL regular expressions can be used to verify if a string has a valid URL format as well as to extract an URL from a string.

URL regex that starts with HTTP or HTTPS

HTTP and HTTPS URLs that start with protocol can be validated using the following regular expression

Pattern.compile("^https?:\\/\\/(?:www\\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#=]{1,256}\\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&\\/=]*)$")

Test it!

/^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\+~#=]{1,256}\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\+.~#?&\/=]*)$/

True

False

Enter a text in the input above to see the result

Example code in Java:

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.MatchResult;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String []args) {
        // Validate URL
        boolean isMatch = Pattern.compile("^https?:\\/\\/(?:www\\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#=]{1,256}\\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&\\/=]*)$")
               .matcher("https://uibakery.io")
               .find(); 
        System.out.println(isMatch); // prints true
        
        // Extract date from a string
        String[] matches = Pattern.compile("https?:\\/\\/(?:www\\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#=]{1,256}\\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&\\/=]*)")
                          .matcher("You can view more details at https://uibakery.io or just ping via email.")
                          .results()
                          .map(MatchResult::group)
                          .toArray(String[]::new);
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(matches)); // prints [https://uibakery.io]
    }
}

URL regex that doesn’t start with HTTP or HTTPS

The regular expression to validate URL without protocol is very similar:

Pattern.compile("^[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#=]{1,256}\\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&//=]*)$")

Test it!

/^[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\+~#=]{1,256}\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\+.~#?&\/=]*)$/

True

False

Enter a text in the input above to see the result

Example code in Java:

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.MatchResult;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String []args) {
        // Validate URL without protocol
        boolean isMatch = Pattern.compile("^[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#=]{1,256}\\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&\\/=]*)$")
               .matcher("uibakery.io/contact")
               .find(); 
        System.out.println(isMatch); // prints true
        
        // Extract URL without protocol from a string
        String[] matches = Pattern.compile("[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\\+~#=]{1,256}\\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\\b(?:[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&\\/=]*)")
                          .matcher("You can view more details at uibakery.io or just ping via email.")
                          .results()
                          .map(MatchResult::group)
                          .toArray(String[]::new);
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(matches)); // prints [uibakery.io]
    }
}

Test it!

True

False

Enter a text in the input above to see the result

Notes on URL validation

The above-mentioned regular expressions only cover the most commonly used types of URLs with domain names. If you have some more complex cases you might need a different solution.

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