URL with query string validation using PHP

Question

I need a PHP validation function for URL with Query string (parameters seperated with &). currently I've the following function for validating URLs

$pattern = '/^(([\w]+:)?\/\/)?(([\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})+(:([\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})+)?@)?([\d\w][-\d\w]{0,253}[\d\w]\.)+[\w]{2,4}(:[\d]+)?(\/([-+_~.\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})*)*(\?(&?([-+_~.\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})=?)*)?(#([-+_~.\d\w]|%[a-fA-f\d]{2,2})*)?$/';

echo preg_match($pattern, $url);

This function correctly validates input like

google.com www.google.com http://google.com http://www.google.com ...etc

But this won't validate the URL when it comes with parameters (Query string). for eg.

http://google.com/index.html?prod=gmail&act=inbox

I need a function that accepts both types of URL inputs. Please help. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

A simple filter_var

if(filter_var($yoururl, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL))
{
  echo 'Ok';
}

might do the trick, although there are problems with url not preceding the schema: http://codepad.org/1HAdufMG

You can turn around the issue by placing an http:// in front of urls without it.
As suggested by @DaveRandom, you could do something like:

$parsed = parse_url($url); 
if (!isset($parsed['scheme'])) $url = "http://$url";

before feeding the filter_var() function.

Overall it's still a simpler solution than some extra-complicated regex, though..

It also has these flags available:

FILTER_FLAG_PATH_REQUIRED FILTER_VALIDATE_URL Requires the URL to contain a path part. FILTER_FLAG_QUERY_REQUIRED FILTER_VALIDATE_URL Requires the URL to contain a query string.