Find url in plain text and insert HTML A markups

Question

I have text with URL and I need to wrap them with HTML A markup, how to do that in c#?

Example, I have

My text and url http://www.google.com The end.

I would like to get

My text and url <a href="http://www.google.com">http://www.google.com</a> The end.

Answer 1

You can use a regex for this. If you need a better Regex you can search for it here http://regexlib.com/Search.aspx?k=url

My quick solution for this would be this:

string mystring = "My text and url http://www.google.com The end.";

Regex urlRx = new Regex(@"(?<url>(http:[/][/]|www.)([a-z]|[A-Z]|[0-9]|[/.]|[~])*)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

MatchCollection matches = urlRx.Matches(mystring);

foreach (Match match in matches)
{
    var url = match.Groups["url"].Value;
    mystring = mystring.Replace(url, string.Format("<a href=\"{0}\">{0}</a>", url));
}