[regex] What is the best regular expression to check if a string is a valid URL?

I created a similar regex (PCRE) to the one @eyelidlessness provided following RFC3987 along with other RFC documents. The major difference between @eyelidlessness and my regex are mainly readability and also URN support.

The regex below is all one piece (instead of being mixed with PHP) so it can be used in different languages very easily (so long as they support PCRE)

The easiest way to test this regex is to use regex101 and copy paste the code and test strings below with the appropriate modifiers (gmx).

To use this regex in PHP, insert the regex below into the following code:

$regex = <<<'EOD'
// Put the regex here
EOD;

  (?:
    (?<scheme>
      (?<urn>urn)|
      (?&d_scheme)
    )
    :
  )?

with this:

  (?:
    (?<scheme>
      (?<urn>urn)|
      (?&d_scheme)
    )
    :
  )?

Note, however, that by replacing this, the regex does not become 100% reliable.

(?(DEFINE)
  # Definitions
  (?<ALPHA>[\p{L}])
  (?<DIGIT>[0-9])
  (?<HEX>[0-9a-fA-F])
  (?<NCCHAR>
    (?&UNRESERVED)|
    (?&PCT_ENCODED)|
    (?&SUB_DELIMS)|
    @
  )
  (?<PCHAR>
    (?&UNRESERVED)|
    (?&PCT_ENCODED)|
    (?&SUB_DELIMS)|
    :|
    @|
    \/
  )
  (?<UCHAR>
    (?&UNRESERVED)|
    (?&PCT_ENCODED)|
    (?&SUB_DELIMS)|
    :
  )
  (?<RCHAR>
    (?&UNRESERVED)|
    (?&PCT_ENCODED)|
    (?&SUB_DELIMS)
  )
  (?<PCT_ENCODED>%(?&HEX){2})
  (?<UNRESERVED>
    ((?&ALPHA)|(?&DIGIT)|[-._~])
  )
  (?<RESERVED>(?&GEN_DELIMS)|(?&SUB_DELIMS))
  (?<GEN_DELIMS>[:\/?#\[\]@])
  (?<SUB_DELIMS>[!$&'()*+,;=])
  # URI Parts
  (?<d_scheme>
    (?!urn)
    (?:
      (?&ALPHA)
      ((?&ALPHA)|(?&DIGIT)|[+-.])*
      (?=:)
    )
  )
  (?<d_hier_part_slashes>
    (\/{2})?
  )
  (?<d_authority>(?&d_userinfo)?)
  (?<d_userinfo>(?&UCHAR)*)
  (?<d_ipv6>
    (?![^:]*::[^:]*::[^:]*)
    (
      (
        ((?&HEX){0,4})
        :
      ){1,7}
      ((?&d_ipv4)|:|(?&HEX){1,4})
    )
  )
  (?<d_ipv4>
    ((?&octet)\.){3}
    (?&octet)
  )
  (?<octet>
    (
      25[]0-5]|
      2[0-4](?&DIGIT)|
      1(?&DIGIT){2}|
      [1-9](?&DIGIT)|
      (?&DIGIT)
    )
  )
  (?<d_reg_name>(?&RCHAR)*)
  (?<d_urn_name>(?&UCHAR)*)
  (?<d_port>(?&DIGIT)*)
  (?<d_path>
    (
      \/
      ((?&PCHAR)*)*
      (?=\?|\#|$)
    )
  )
  (?<d_query>
    (
      ((?&PCHAR)|\/|\?)*
    )?
  )
  (?<d_fragment>
    (
      ((?&PCHAR)|\/|\?)*
    )?
  )
)
^
(?<link>
  (?:
    (?<scheme>
      (?<urn>urn)|
      (?&d_scheme)
    )
    :
  )
  (?(urn)
    (?:
      (?<namespace_identifier>[0-9a-zA-Z\-]+)
      :
      (?<namespace_specific_string>(?&d_urn_name)+)
    )
    |
    (?<hier_part>
      (?<slashes>(?&d_hier_part_slashes))
      (?<authority>
        (?:
          (?<userinfo>(?&d_authority))
          @
        )?
        (?<host>
          (?<ipv4>\[?(?&d_ipv4)\]?)|
          (?<ipv6>\[(?&d_ipv6)\])|
          (?<domain>(?&d_reg_name))
        )
        (?:
          :
          (?<port>(?&d_port))
        )?
      )
      (?<path>(?&d_path))?
    )
    (?:
      \?
      (?<query>(?&d_query))
    )?
    (?:
      \#
      (?<fragment>(?&d_fragment))
    )?
  )
)
$

Test Strings

# Valid URIs
ftp://cnn.example.com&[email protected]/top_story.htm
ftp://ftp.is.co.za/rfc/rfc1808.txt
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
ldap://[2001:db8::7]/c=GB?objectClass?one
mailto:[email protected]
news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix
tel:+1-816-555-1212
telnet://192.0.2.16:80/
urn:isbn:0451450523
urn:oid:2.16.840
urn:isan:0000-0000-9E59-0000-O-0000-0000-2
urn:oasis:names:specification:docbook:dtd:xml:4.1.2
http://localhost/test/somefile.php?query=someval&variable=value#fragment
http://[2001:db8:a0b:12f0::1]/test
ftp://username:[email protected]/path/to/file/somefile.html?queryVariable=value#fragment
https://subdomain.domain.com/path/to/file.php?query=value#fragment
https://subdomain.example.com/path/to/file.php?query=value#fragment
mailto:john.smith(comment)@example.com
mailto:user@[2001:DB8::1]
mailto:user@[255:192:168:1]
mailto:[email protected]
http://localhost:4433/path/to/file?query#fragment
# Note that the example below IS a valid as it does follow RFC standards
localhost:4433/path/to/file

# These work with the optional scheme group although I'd suggest making the scheme mandatory as misinterpretations can occur
[email protected]
www.google.com/pathtofile.php?query
[192a:123::192.168.1.1]:80/path/to/file.html?query#fragment