Check if a string contains nothing but an URL in PHP

Question

I am wondering if this is a proper way to check, if a string contains nothing but an URL:

if (stripos($string, 'http') == 0 && !preg_match('/\s/',$string)) {   do_something(); } 

stripos() checks if the string starts with "http"
preg_match() checks if the string contains spaces

If not so, I assume that the string is nothing but an URL - but is that assumption valid? Are there better ways to achieve this?

Answer 1

Use filter_var()

if (filter_var($string, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL)) {    // you're good } 

The filters can be even more refined. See the manual for more on this.