Is there a URL validator on .Net?

Is there a method to validate URLs in .Net, ASP.Net, or ASP.Net MVC?

static bool IsValidUri(string urlString) {
try {
new Uri(urlString);
return true;
} catch {
return false;
}
}

A faster way (probably) than using try/catch functionality would be to use Regex. If you had to validate 1000s of URLs catching the exception multiple times would be slow.

Here's [a link to sample Regex][1]- use Google to find more.


[1]:

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You can use the [`Uri.TryCreate`][1] to validate an URL:

public bool IsValidUri(string uri)
{
Uri validatedUri;
return Uri.TryCreate(uri, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute, out validatedUri);
}

The comments suggest that `TryCreate` just moves the exception handling one level down. However, I checked the source code and found that this is not the case. There is no try/catch inside `TryCreate`, it uses a custom parser which should not throw.


[1]:

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You can use Uri.IsWellFormedUriString, no need to create your own function for that:

public static bool IsWellFormedUriString(string uriString, uriKind uriKind);

Where uriKind can be:


UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute
UriKind.Absolute
UriKind.Relative

For more info see:

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The answers provided thusfar do not check for a scheme, allowing all kinds of unwanted input, which could make you vulnerable for javascript injection (see the comment of TheCloudlessSky).

An URI is just a unique identification of a object. "C:\Test" is a valid URI.

In my project I used the following code:

/// <summary>
/// Validates a URL.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="url"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
private bool ValidateUrl(string url)
{
Uri validatedUri;

if (Uri.TryCreate(url, UriKind.Absolute, out Uri validatedUri)) //.NET URI validation.
{
//If true: validatedUri contains a valid Uri. Check for the scheme in addition.
return (validatedUri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttp || validatedUri.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttps);
}
return false;
}

Define which schemes you will allow and change the code accordingly.

In case you need the nice code in VB.Net from Arjan

```
'Validates a URL.
Function ValidateUrl(url As String) As Boolean
Dim validatedUri As Uri = Nothing
If (Uri.TryCreate(url, UriKind.Absolute, validatedUri)) Then
Return (validatedUri.Scheme = Uri.UriSchemeHttp Or validatedUri.Scheme = Uri.UriSchemeHttps)
End If
Return False
End Function
```