Regex to match URL

by 
$search  = "#^((?#
    the scheme:
  )(?:https?://)(?#
    second level domains and beyond:
  )(?:[\S]+\.)+((?#
    top level domains:
  )MUSEUM|TRAVEL|AERO|ARPA|ASIA|EDU|GOV|MIL|MOBI|(?#
  )COOP|INFO|NAME|BIZ|CAT|COM|INT|JOBS|NET|ORG|PRO|TEL|(?#
  )A[CDEFGILMNOQRSTUWXZ]|B[ABDEFGHIJLMNORSTVWYZ]|(?#
  )C[ACDFGHIKLMNORUVXYZ]|D[EJKMOZ]|(?#
  )E[CEGHRSTU]|F[IJKMOR]|G[ABDEFGHILMNPQRSTUWY]|(?#
  )H[KMNRTU]|I[DELMNOQRST]|J[EMOP]|(?#
  )K[EGHIMNPRWYZ]|L[ABCIKRSTUVY]|M[ACDEFGHKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ]|(?#
  )N[ACEFGILOPRUZ]|OM|P[AEFGHKLMNRSTWY]|QA|R[EOSUW]|(?#
  )S[ABCDEGHIJKLMNORTUVYZ]|T[CDFGHJKLMNOPRTVWZ]|(?#
  )U[AGKMSYZ]|V[ACEGINU]|W[FS]|Y[ETU]|Z[AMW])(?#
    the path, can be there or not:
  )(/[a-z0-9\._/~%\-\+&\#\?!=\(\)@]*)?)$#i";

Just cleaned up a bit. This will match only HTTP(s) addresses, and, as long as you copied all top level domains correctly from IANA, only those standardized (it will not match http://localhost) and with the http:// declared.

Finally you should end with the path part, that will always start with a /, if it is there.

However, I’d suggest to follow Cerebrus: If you’re not sure about this, learn regexps in a more gentle way and use proven patterns for complicated tasks.

Cheers,

By the way: Your regexp will also match something.r and something.h (between |TO| and |TR| in your example). I left them out in my version, as I guess it was a typo.

On re-reading the question: Change

  )(?:https?://)(?#

to

  )(?:https?://)?(?#

(there is a ? extra) to match ‘URLs’ without the scheme.

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