How to replace plain URLs with links

Question

I am using the function below to match URLs inside a given text and replace them for HTML links  The regular expression is working great  but currently I am only replacing the first match   How I can replace all the URL  I guess I should be using the exec command  but I did not really figure how to do it   function replaceURLWithHTMLLinks text        var exp      b https  ftp file       -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp             i      return text replace exp   lt a href   1  gt  1 lt  a gt

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I ve made some small modifications to Travis s code  just to avoid any unnecessary redeclaration - but it s working great for my needs  so nice job     function linkify inputText        var replacedText  replacePattern1  replacePattern2  replacePattern3         URLs starting with http     https     or ftp        replacePattern1      b https  ftp       -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp             gim      replacedText   inputText replace replacePattern1    lt a href   1  target   blank  gt  1 lt  a gt            URLs starting with  www    without    before it  or it d re-link the ones done above       replacePattern2              www    S    b     gim      replacedText   replacedText replace replacePattern2    1 lt a href  http    2  target   blank  gt  2 lt  a gt            Change email addresses to mailto   links      replacePattern3       a-zA-Z0-9 -         a-zA-Z         a-zA-Z  2 6     gim      replacedText   replacedText replace replacePattern3    lt a href  mailto  1  gt  1 lt  a gt          return replacedText

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Try Below Solution  function replaceLinkClickableLink url         let pattern   new RegExp    https                          a-z  d   a-z  d-   a-z  d           a-z  2                   d 1 3      3   d 1 3                     d        -a-z  d                            amp a-z  d      -                     -a-z  d         i     let isUrl   pattern test url   if  isUrl        return   lt a href    url   target   blank  gt   url  lt  a gt      return url

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If you need to show shorter link  only domain   but with same long URL  you can try my modification of Sam Hasler s code version posted above  function replaceURLWithHTMLLinks text        var exp      b https  ftp file        -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp                    -A-Z0-9  amp             ig      return text replace exp    lt a href   1  target   blank  gt  3 lt  a gt

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Thanks  this was very helpful  I also wanted something that would link things that looked like a URL -- as a basic requirement  it d link something like www yahoo com  even if the http    protocol prefix was not present  So basically  if  www   is present  it ll link it and assume it s http     I also wanted emails to turn into mailto  links  EXAMPLE   www yahoo com would be converted to www yahoo com  Here s the code I ended up with  combination of code from this page and other stuff I found online  and other stuff I did on my own    function Linkify inputText          URLs starting with http     https     or ftp        var replacePattern1      b https  ftp       -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp             gim      var replacedText   inputText replace replacePattern1    lt a href   1  target   blank  gt  1 lt  a gt            URLs starting with www   without    before it  or it d re-link the ones done above      var replacePattern2              www    S    b     gim      var replacedText   replacedText replace replacePattern2    1 lt a href  http    2  target   blank  gt  2 lt  a gt            Change email addresses to mailto   links     var replacePattern3      w   a-zA-Z       a-zA-Z  2 6   gim      var replacedText   replacedText replace replacePattern3    lt a href  mailto  1  gt  1 lt  a gt          return replacedText     In the 2nd replace  the          part is only replacing www whatever com if it s not already prefixed by    -- to avoid double-linking if a URL was already linked in the first replace  Also  it s possible that www whatever com might be at the beginning of the string  which is the first  or  condition in that part of the regex   This could be integrated as a jQuery plugin as Jesse P illustrated above -- but I specifically wanted a regular function that wasn t acting on an existing DOM element  because I m taking text I have and then adding it to the DOM  and I want the text to be  linkified  before I add it  so I pass the text through this function  Works great

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I ve wrote yet another JavaScript library  it might be better for you since it s very sensitive with the least possible false positives  fast and small in size  I m currently actively maintaining it so please do test it in the demo page and see how it would work for you   link  https   github com alexcorvi anchorme js

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Replace URLs in text with HTML links  ignore the URLs within a href pre tag   https   github com JimLiu auto-link

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Keep it simple  Say what you cannot have  rather than what you can have     As mentioned above  URLs can be quite complex  especially after the      and not all of them start with a  www   e g  maps bing com something key            amp lat 65 amp lon amp lon 20  So  rather than have a complex regex that wont meet all edge cases  and will be hard to maintain  how about this much simpler one  which works well for me in practise   Match  http s      anything but a space    www   anything but a space    Where  anything  is      lt  gt  s      basically a greedy match  carrying on to you meet a space  quote  angle bracket  or end of line   Also   Remember to check that it is not already in URL format  e g  the text contains href       or src        Add ref nofollow  if appropriate   This solution isn t as  good  as the libraries mentioned above  but is much simpler  and works well in practise   if html match    href   src  i          return html     text already has a hyper link in it        html   html replace                 b https         s          lt   gt     ig                 lt a ref  nofollow  href   1  gt  1 lt  a gt                    html   html replace                 s www     s          lt   gt     ig                 lt a ref  nofollow  href  http    1  gt  1 lt  a gt                    html   html replace                   www     s          lt   gt     ig                 lt a ref  nofollow  href  http    1  gt  1 lt  a gt                    return html

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The warnings about URI complexity should be noted  but the simple answer to your question is  To replace every match you need to add the  g flag to the end of the RegEx     b https  ftp file       -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp             gi

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This solution works like many of the others  and in fact uses the same regex as one of them  however in stead of returning a HTML String this will return a document fragment containing the A element and any applicable text nodes     function make link string        var words   string split               ret   document createDocumentFragment        for  var i   0  l   words length  i  lt  l  i              if  words i  match   -a-zA-Z0-9           amp      2 256    a-z  2 4  b    -a-zA-Z0-9           amp         gi                 var elm   document createElement  a                elm href   words i               elm textContent   words i               if  ret childNodes length  gt  0                    ret lastChild textContent                                   ret appendChild elm             else               if  ret lastChild  amp  amp  ret lastChild nodeType     3                    ret lastChild textContent          words i                 else                   ret appendChild document createTextNode       words i                                       return ret      There are some caveats  namely with older IE and textContent support    here is a demo

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Made some optimizations to Travis  Linkify   code above  I also fixed a bug where email addresses with subdomain type formats would not be matched  i e  example domain co uk    In addition  I changed the implementation to prototype the String class so that items can be matched like so   var text    address example com   text linkify      http   stackoverflow com   linkify      Anyway  here s the script   if  String linkify        String prototype linkify   function                 http     https     ftp            var urlPattern     b   https  ftp       a-z0-9-  amp                   a-z0-9-  amp            gim              www  sans http    or https            var pseudoUrlPattern              www    S    b     gim              Email addresses         var emailAddressPattern      w     a-zA-Z -         a-zA-Z  2 6    gim           return this              replace urlPattern    lt a href    amp   gt   amp  lt  a gt                 replace pseudoUrlPattern    1 lt a href  http    2  gt  2 lt  a gt                 replace emailAddressPattern    lt a href  mailto   amp   gt   amp  lt  a gt

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After input from several sources I ve now a solution that works well   It had to do with writing your own replacement code   Answer   Fiddle   function replaceURLWithHTMLLinks text        var re             b    https  ftp file       -a-z0-9  amp                     -a-z0-9  amp               ig      return text replace re  function match  lParens  url            var rParens               lParens   lParens                    Try to strip the same number of right parens from url            as there are left parens   Here  lParenCounter must be            a RegExp object   You cannot use a literal                while      g exec lParens                      because an object is needed to store the lastIndex state          var lParenCounter       g          while  lParenCounter exec lParens                 var m                 We want m 1  to be greedy  unless a period precedes the                right parenthesis   These tests cannot be simplified as                                    exec url                 because if      is greedy then     never gets a chance              if  m                  exec url                                      exec url                     url   m 1                   rParens   m 2    rParens                                  return lParens     lt a href      url      gt     url     lt  a gt     rParens

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I searched on google for anything newer and ran across this one      p   each function         this  html    this  html   replace    http https ftp        w   amp    -    -       w s  amp          -   gt    g    lt a href   1  gt  1 lt  a gt              demo  http   jsfiddle net kachibito hEgvc 1   Works really well for normal links

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The best script to do this  http   benalman com projects javascript-linkify-process-lin

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Reg Ex      b  https  ftp file        www   -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp              ig  function UriphiMe text          var exp      b  https  ftp file        www   -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp              ig         return text replace exp   lt a href   1  gt  1 lt  a gt         Below are some tested string     Find me on to www google com  www Find me on to www http   www com  Follow me on   http   www nishantwork wordpress com  http   www nishantwork wordpress com  Follow me on   http   www nishantwork wordpress com  https   stackoverflow com users 430803 nishant   Note  If you don t want to pass www as valid one just use below reg ex      b  https  ftp file        www   -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp             ig

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Here s my solution   var content    Visit https   wwww google com or watch this video  https   www youtube com watch v 0T4DQYgsazo and news at http   www bbc com   content   replaceUrlsWithLinks content   http       content   replaceUrlsWithLinks content   https        function replaceUrlsWithLinks content  protocol        var startPos   0      var s   0       while  s  lt  content length            startPos   content indexOf protocol  s            if  startPos  lt  0              return content           let endPos   content indexOf      startPos   1            if  endPos  lt  0              endPos   content length           let url   content substr startPos  endPos - startPos            if  url endsWith         url endsWith         url endsWith                     url   url substr 0  url length - 1               endPos--                     if  ROOTNS utils stringsHelper validUrl url                 let link     lt a href      url      gt     url     lt  a gt                content   content substr 0  startPos    link   content substr endPos               s   startPos   link length            else               s   endPos   1                       return content     function validUrl url        try           new URL url           return true        catch  e            return false

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I made a change to Roshambo String linkify   to the emailAddressPattern to recognize aaa bbb  ccc ddd addresses  if  String linkify        String prototype linkify   function                 http     https     ftp            var urlPattern     b   https  ftp       a-z0-9-  amp                   a-z0-9-  amp            gim              www  sans http    or https            var pseudoUrlPattern              www    S    b     gim              Email addresses     here I ve changed the expression             var emailAddressPattern       a-zA-Z0-9  -       a-zA-Z          a-zA-Z  2 6     gim           return this              replace urlPattern    lt a target   blank  href    amp   gt   amp  lt  a gt                 replace pseudoUrlPattern    1 lt a target   blank  href  http    2  gt  2 lt  a gt                 replace emailAddressPattern    lt a target   blank  href  mailto  1  gt  1 lt  a gt

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First off  rolling your own regexp to parse URLs is a terrible idea  You must imagine this is a common enough problem that someone has written  debugged and tested a library for it  according to the RFCs  URIs are complex - check out the code for URL parsing in Node js and the Wikipedia page on URI schemes   There are a ton of edge cases when it comes to parsing URLs  international domain names  actual   museum  vs  nonexistent   etc  TLDs  weird punctuation including parentheses  punctuation at the end of the URL  IPV6 hostnames etc   I ve looked at a ton of libraries  and there are a few worth using despite some downsides    Soapbox s linkify has seen some serious effort put into it  and a major refactor in June 2015 removed the jQuery dependency  It still has issues with IDNs  AnchorMe is a newcomer that claims to be faster and leaner  Some IDN issues as well  Autolinker js lists features very specifically  e g   Will properly handle HTML input  The utility will not change the href attribute inside anchor    tags    I ll thrown some tests at it when a demo becomes available    Libraries that I ve disqualified quickly for this task    Django s urlize didn t handle certain TLDs properly  here is the official list of valid TLDs  No demo  autolink-js wouldn t detect  www google com  without http     so it s not quite suitable for autolinking  casual URLs   without a scheme protocol  found in plain text  Ben Alman s linkify hasn t been maintained since 2009    If you insist on a regular expression  the most comprehensive is the URL regexp from Component  though it will falsely detect some non-existent two-letter TLDs by looking at it

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I had to do the opposite  and make html links into just the URL  but I modified your regex and it works like a charm  thanks       var exp     lt a s  href    quot    b https  ftp file       -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp               quot     gt    lt   a gt  ig   source   source replace exp  quot  1 quot

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Replacing URLs with links  Answer to the General Problem   The regular expression in the question misses a lot of edge cases  When detecting URLs  it s always better to use a specialized library that handles international domain names  new TLDs like  museum  parentheses and other punctuation within and at the end of the URL  and many other edge cases  See the Jeff Atwood s blog post The Problem With URLs for an explanation of some of the other issues       The best summary of URL matching libraries is in Dan Dascalescu s Answer     as of Feb 2014       Make a regular expression replace more than one match   Answer to the specific problem   Add a  g  to the end of the regular expression to enable global matching    ig    But that only fixes the problem in the question where the regular expression was only replacing the first match  Do not use that code

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Try the below function    function anchorify text     var exp      b https  ftp file       -A-Z0-9  amp                   -A-Z0-9  amp             ig    var text1 text replace exp    lt a href   1  gt  1 lt  a gt       var exp2             www    S    b     gim    return text1 replace exp2    1 lt a target   blank  href  http    2  gt  2 lt  a gt         alert anchorify  Hola amigo  https   www sharda ac in academics

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The e-mail detection in Travitron s answer above did not work for me  so I extended replaced it with the following  C  code       Change e-mail addresses to mailto  links  const RegexOptions o   RegexOptions Multiline   RegexOptions IgnoreCase  const string pat3       a-zA-Z0-9  -        a-zA-Z0-9  -         a-zA-Z  2 6     const string rep3      lt a href   mailto  1  2  3   gt  1  2  3 lt  a gt    text   Regex Replace text  pat3  rep3  o     This allows for e-mail addresses like  firstname secondname one two three co uk

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Identifying URLs is tricky because they are often surrounded by punctuation marks and because users frequently do not use the full form of the URL  Many JavaScript functions exist for replacing URLs with hyperlinks  but I was unable to find one that works as well as the urlize filter in the Python-based web framework Django  I therefore ported Django s urlize function to JavaScript      https   github com ljosa urlize js   An example   urlize  Go to SO  stackoverflow com  and ask   lt grin gt             nofollow  true  autoescape  true     gt   Go to SO   lt a href  http   stackoverflow com  rel  nofollow  gt stackoverflow com lt  a gt   and ask   amp lt grin amp gt     The second argument  if true  causes rel  nofollow  to be inserted  The third argument  if true  escapes characters that have special meaning in HTML  See the README file

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Correct URL detection with international domains  amp  astral characters support is not trivial thing  linkify-it library builds regex from many conditions  and final size is about 6 kilobytes      It s more accurate than all libs  currently referenced in accepted answer   See linkify-it demo to check live all edge cases and test your ones   If you need to linkify HTML source  you should parse it first  and iterate each text token separately

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Convert URLs in a string to anchor buttons     param   string  string     returns   string       function URLify string     var urls   string match     ftp https          - w            amp          g     if  urls        urls forEach function  url          string   string replace url    lt a target   blank  href      url      gt     url     lt  a gt                   return string replace        lt br  gt          simple example

[javascript] How to replace plain URLs with links?

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