URL's

berbbrown

I have a PHP form which requires the user to add their web site. Can anyone tell how I can check whether [url]http://[/url] or http://www. exists at the beginning of the address. If it doesn't I would like to add it.

Many Thanks

webdes03

You could probably use preg_match() to see if it is present or not and if not use something like:

$yourvar = "http://www.".$yourvar;

To add the prefix.

http://us2.php.net/preg-match

dbchip2000

One thing to consider is that not all site hosting providers register the www part in the URL. You an also use the function strpos("url the user entered","http://") and if it is false they didn't add it and you should. (Note that you should use three equal signs to compare it with false because the location might be at the zero string which is similar to false) strpos is better and slightly quicker for simple searches than regex

Weedpacket

You could also use [man]substr[/man] to look at the first seven characters and see if they form the string "http://". Using strpos you'd want to test that the value returned is ===0 - because if it's anything else (false, or another number) it's not a valid http URL. There are plenty of string functions 🙂