Question

I’m trying to set a regexp which will check the start of a string, and if it contains either http:// or https:// it should match it.

How can I do that? I’m trying the following which isn’t working:

^[(http)(https)]://

Answer 1

Your use of [] is incorrect — note that [] denotes a character class and will therefore only ever match one character. The expression [(http)(https)] translates to “match a (, an h, a t, a t, a p, a ), or an s.” (Duplicate characters are ignored.)

Try this:

^https?://

If you really want to use alternation, use this syntax instead:

^(http|https)://