URL Validation in Laravel with isUrl Method

Need to validate URLs in your Laravel application? The Str::isUrl method provides a simple and flexible way to check if strings are valid URLs.

Basic Usage

Validate URLs with or without protocol restrictions:

use Illuminate\Support\Str;

// Basic URL validation
$isUrl = Str::isUrl('http://example.com');  // true
$isUrl = Str::isUrl('laravel');             // false

// With protocol restrictions
$isUrl = Str::isUrl('http://example.com', ['http', 'https']);

Real-World Example

Here's how you might use it in a link management system:

class LinkValidator
{
    public function validateSocialLinks(array $links)
    {
        return collect($links)->filter(function ($url, $platform) {
            return match ($platform) {
                'twitter' => Str::isUrl($url, ['https']),
                'github' => Str::isUrl($url, ['https']),
                'website' => Str::isUrl($url, ['http', 'https']),
                default => Str::isUrl($url)
            };
        });
    }

    public function validateSecureUrls(array $urls)
    {
        return collect($urls)
            ->filter(fn($url) => Str::isUrl($url, ['https']))
            ->values();
    }

    public function sanitizeUserSubmittedLinks(array $links)
    {
        return array_filter($links, function ($link) {
            // Only allow http/https URLs
            if (!Str::isUrl($link, ['http', 'https'])) {
                return false;
            }

            // Additional validation logic here
            return true;
        });
    }
}

// Usage
$validator = new LinkValidator();

$socialLinks = [
    'twitter' => 'https://twitter.com/user',
    'website' => 'http://example.com',
    'invalid' => 'not-a-url'
];

$validLinks = $validator->validateSocialLinks($socialLinks);

The isUrl method makes it easy to validate URLs while maintaining control over accepted protocols.

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