Uniform Resource Matching

Ruby's URI standard library contains a very sophisticated regex for matching URLs:

"At https://idiosyncratic-ruby.com you can learn about the " \
"obscure parts of Ruby"[URI.regexp]
# => "https://idiosyncratic-ruby.com"

This regex is built in uri/rfc2396_parser.rb and looks like this:

$ ruby -v
ruby 2.2.2p95 (2015-04-13 revision 50295) [x86_64-linux]
$ ruby -r uri -e 'p URI.regexp'
/
        ([a-zA-Z][\-+.a-zA-Z\d]*):                           (?# 1: scheme)
        (?:
           ((?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d;?:@&=+$,]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})(?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d;\/?:@&=+$,\[\]]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*)                    (?# 2: opaque)
        |
           (?:(?:
             \/\/(?:
                 (?:(?:((?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d;:&=+$,]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*)@)?        (?# 3: userinfo)
                   (?:((?:(?:[a-zA-Z0-9\-.]|%\h\h)+|\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}|\[(?:(?:[a-fA-F\d]{1,4}:)*(?:[a-fA-F\d]{1,4}|\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3})|(?:(?:[a-fA-F\d]{1,4}:)*[a-fA-F\d]{1,4})?::(?:(?:[a-fA-F\d]{1,4}:)*(?:[a-fA-F\d]{1,4}|\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}))?)\]))(?::(\d*))?))? (?# 4: host, 5: port)
               |
                 ((?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d$,;:@&=+]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})+)                 (?# 6: registry)
               )
             |
             (?!\/\/))                           (?# XXX: '\/\/' is the mark for hostport)
             (\/(?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d:@&=+$,]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*(?:;(?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d:@&=+$,]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*)*(?:\/(?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d:@&=+$,]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*(?:;(?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d:@&=+$,]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*)*)*)?                    (?# 7: path)
           )(?:\?((?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d;\/?:@&=+$,\[\]]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*))?                 (?# 8: query)
        )
        (?:\#((?:[\-_.!~*'()a-zA-Z\d;\/?:@&=+$,\[\]]|%[a-fA-F\d]{2})*))?                  (?# 9: fragment)
      /x

Further Reading

More Idiosyncratic Ruby