Question

I am looking the best way to add http:// to a submitted url. I have a site that allows users to submit their website url when signing up, the problem is some user type “example.com” some users type “www.example.com” and some type “http(s)://example.com”

What I would like to accomplish is to make sure the end result is “http(s)://example.com” regardless of what they submit.

Is there any way to do this and still account for other things like co.uk or https?

Answer 1

You don’t really need of REGEX. REGEX are often a lot expensive. Here’s a home made function that achieve your goal:

function fix_url($url) {
    return (substr($url, 0, 7) == 'http://' || substr($url, 0, 8) == 'https://')
        ? $url 
        : 'http://'.$url;
}

Samples:

$url = 'example.com';
$url1 = 'httpexample.com';
$url2 = 'http://example.com';
$url3 = 'https://example.com';

echo fix_url($url);
echo '<br>';
echo fix_url($url1);
echo '<br>';
echo fix_url($url2);
echo '<br>';
echo fix_url($url3);
echo '<br>';

Output:

http://example.com
http://httpexample.com
http://example.com
https://example.com

If you have any doubt, please consider adding a comment below.

References:

• substr()