Alternative to URI.parse that allows hostnames to contain an underscore

Question

I'm using DMOZ's list of url topics, which contains some urls that have hostnames that contain an underscore.

For example:

608  <ExternalPage about="http://outer_heaven4.tripod.com/index2.htm">
609    <d:Title>The Outer Heaven</d:Title>
610    <d:Description>Information and image gallery of McFarlane's action figures for Trigun, Akira, Tenchi Muyo and other Japanese Sci-Fi animations.</d:Description>
611    <topic>Top/Arts/Animation/Anime/Collectibles/Models_and_Figures/Action_Figures</topic>
612  </ExternalPage>

While this url will work in a web browser (or, at least, it does in mine :p), it's not legal according to the standard:

a hostname may not contain other characters, such as the underscore character (_),

which causes errors when trying to parse such URL with URI.parse:

[2] pry(main)> require 'uri'
=> true
[3] pry(main)> URI.parse "http://outer_heaven4.tripod.com/index2.htm"
URI::InvalidURIError: the scheme http does not accept registry part: outer_heaven4.tripod.com (or bad hostname?)
from ~/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/uri/generic.rb:213:in `initialize'

Is there an alternative to URI.parse I can use that has lower strictness without just rolling my own?

Answer 1

Try Addressable::URI. It follows the RFCs more closely than URI and is very flexible.

require 'addressable/uri'
uri = Addressable::URI.parse('http://outer_heaven4.tripod.com/index2.htm') 
uri.host 
=> "outer_heaven4.tripod.com"

I've used it for some projects and have been happy with it. URI is getting a bit... rusty and is in need of TLC. Other's have commented on it too:

http://www.cloudspace.com/blog/2009/05/26/replacing-rubys-uri-with-addressable/

There was quite a discussion about URI's state several years ago among the Ruby developers. I can't find the link to it right now, but there was a recommendation that Addressable::URI be used as a replacement. I don't know if someone stepped up to take over URI development, or where things stand right now. In my own code I continue to use URI for simple things and switch to Addressable::URI when URI proves to do the wrong thing for me.