Regex for match web extensions

Question

I want to check whether a url is a image, java script, pdf etc

String url = "www.something.com/script/sample.js?xyz=xyz;

Below regex works fine but only with out xyz=zyz

".*(mov|jpg|gif|pdf|js)$"

When i remove $ at the end to eliminate regex requirement for .js to be in end but then it gives false

Answer 1

.*(mov|jpg|gif|pdf|js).*$ allows you to have any optional text after the file extension. The capturing group captures the file extension. You can see this here .

Answer 2

Use the regex as below:

   .*\\.(mov|jpg|gif|pdf|js)\\?

This matches for dot(.) followed by your extension and terminated by ?

The first dot(.) is matching any character while second dot(.) prefixed by \\\\ match for dot(.) as literal just before your extension list.

Answer 3

Why not use java.net.URL to parse the url string, it could avoid lots of mismatching problems:

try {
  URL url = new URL(urlString);
  String filename = url.getFile();
  // now test if the filename ends with your desired extensions.
} catch (Exception e) {
  // This case the url cannot be parsed.
}

Answer 4

I'm not a big fan of this, but try:

.*\\.(mov|jpg|gif|pdf|js).*$

The problem is that it will accept things like "our.moving.day"

and post your code. there is always more than one way to skin a cat and perhaps there is something wrong with your code, not the regex.

Also, try regex testers...theres a ton of them out there. i'm a big fan of:

http://rubular.com/ and http://gskinner.com/RegExr/ (but they are mostly for php/ruby)