How to detect (in a textarea or others inputs) if the user has finished to enter a url as Facebook does in its main form please ?

Solutions like this work but only when the user has finished typing and performs an action, eg clicking a button.

I will wish to detect urls throughout the entry, eg run a check on the word that has been typed after each space.

Thank you in advance.

How to detect (in a textarea or others inputs) if the user has finished to enter a url as Facebook does in its main form please ?

Solutions like this work but only when the user has finished typing and performs an action, eg clicking a button.

I will wish to detect urls throughout the entry, eg run a check on the word that has been typed after each space.

Thank you in advance.

• javascript
• jquery
• regex
• textarea

• The identification of URLs would be the same, you'd just be binding it to a different event - a key being pressed rather than a button being clicked. – Anthony Grist Commented Aug 23, 2012 at 14:03

3 Answers 3

Here is an example on how you could do this:

$(function() {
    "use strict";
    var url = /[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,4}\b(\/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)?/gi;

    $("#textarea").on("keyup", function( e ) {
        var urls, output = "";
        if ( e.keyCode !== 8 && e.keyCode !== 9 && e.keyCode !== 13 && e.keyCode !== 32 && e.keyCode !== 46 ) {
            // Return is backspace, tab, enter, space or delete was not pressed.
            return;
        }

        while ((urls = url.exec(this.value)) !== null) {
            output += urls[0] + ", ";
        }
        console.log("URLS: " + output.substring(0, output.length - 2));
    });
});

Of course you would have to bind other events like .blur() for it to work properly.

Try the following fiddle and check you console as you type: http://jsfiddle/sQVe/mXQrc/1/

Look at this: https://github./stephan-fischer/jQuery-LiveUrl/ - its clean, simple, and provides a preview of the url!

What you are looking for is the keypress event, you can view the documentation and an example of how to use it here: http://api.jquery./keypress/