testing to see if a string starts with http://

string test

[newb2seo]

Hi.
I am trying to check if a string is a full url.
And if not, to fix it.

I have a series of strings... some are full urls starting with http.

others are just like ../folder/image.gif

while others are "images/here.gif" etc

I'm thinking I need to use something like preg_match?

But I'm not so familiar with it.

An example I found is like
#===============================================

<?php
$subject = "abcdef";
$pattern = '/^def/';
preg_match($pattern, substr($subject,3), $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
print_r($matches);
?>

#===============================================

I know the carrot sign (up arrow) needs to be used to check stuff at the beginning.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.
-J

[g1smd]

Carrot?

LOL.

It's a

caret

, like this ^

^http://

[newb2seo]

:)
Yes I know. I don't know how to spell it. :)

Do you know what the regex would look like for preg_match?
In order to check content for that?

[FourDegreez]

I use this one, which covers most URLs. It could be improved further or edited for your needs, but here it is:

'/(http:\/\/¦https:\/\/¦ftp:\/\/)([a-z0-9\.\/,_-]+)/i'