This tech tip demonstrates how to exrtact all URL addresses from text.

ARRAY LONGINT(posFound_a;0) ARRAY LONGINT(lengthFound_a;0) ARRAY TEXT(URL_a;0) C_LONGINT($start) C_TEXT($mySubstring) C_TEXT(stringNew; pattern) C_BOOLEAN($found) $start:=1 $foung:=False pattern:="(http|https|ftp)" ` Patterns that contain http or https, or ftp protocols. pattern:=pattern + "\\://" ` Adding :// to the pattern pattern:=pattern + "[a-zA-Z0-9\\-\\.]+" `Matches the first part of the domain pattern:=pattern + "\\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}" `Match the second part of the domain pattern:=pattern + "(:[a-zA-Z0-9]*)?/?" `Match the port number and the slash pattern:=pattern + "([a-zA-Z0-9\\-\\._?\\,'/\\+%\\$#\\=~\\:\\&])*" `Reserved chars pattern:=pattern + "[^\\.\\,\\)\\(\\s\\']" `Excluded chars myString:="This is url1 http://www.4d.com and this is url 2" myString:=myString +"http://forums.4d.fr and http://slashdot.org and another email" myString:=myString + " http://doc.4d.com/4D-Language-Reference-11.6/Printing/" myString:=myString + "Subtotal.301-205861.en.html" Repeat   $found:=Match regex(pattern;myString;$start;posFound_a;lengthFound_a)   stringNew:=Substring(myString;posFound_a{0};lengthFound_a{0})   If ($found)     APPEND TO ARRAY(URL_a;stringNew)   End if   $start:=posFound_a{0}+lengthFound_a{0} Until (Not($found))

After executing this method the URL_a array will be populated with all URL addresses. This pattern works with most common url addresses.

If the user wants to instead validate a URL address the pattern should begin with "^" and end with "$".