Validating URLs in Python
Question: I've been trying to figure out what the best way to validate a URL is
(specifically in Python) but haven't really been able to find an answer. It
seems like there isn't one known way to validate a URL, and it depends on what
URLs you think you may need to validate. As well, I found it difficult to find
an easy to read standard for URL structure. I did find the RFCs 3986 and 3987,
but they contain much more than just how it is structured.

Am I missing something, or is there no one standard way to validate a URL?


Answer: This looks like it might be a duplicate of [How do you validate a URL with a
regular expression in Python?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/827557/how-
do-you-validate-a-url-with-a-regular-expression-in-python)

(I would make a comment, but I don't have enough reputation).

You should be able to use the urlparse library described there.

    
    
    >>> from urlparse import urlparse
    >>> urlparse('actually not a url')
    ParseResult(scheme='', netloc='', path='actually not a url', params='', query='', fragment='')
    >>> urlparse('http://google.com')
    ParseResult(scheme='http', netloc='google.com', path='', params='', query='', fragment='')
    

call `urlparse` on the string you want to check and then make sure that the
`ParseResult` has attributes for `scheme` and `netloc`

