How to: Extract a Protocol and Port Number from a URL

The following example extracts a protocol and port number from a URL.

Example

The example uses the Match.Result method to return the protocol followed by a colon followed by the port number.

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Module Example
   Public Sub Main()
      Dim url As String = "https://www.contoso.com:8080/letters/readme.html" 
      Dim r As New Regex("^(?<proto>\w+)://[^/]+?(?<port>:\d+)?/")
      Dim m As Match = r.Match(url)
      If m.Success Then
         Console.WriteLine(r.Match(url).Result("${proto}${port}"))
      End If   
   End Sub
End Module
' The example displays the following output:
'       http:8080
using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public class Example
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      string url = "https://www.contoso.com:8080/letters/readme.html";

      Regex r = new Regex(@"^(?<proto>\w+)://[^/]+?(?<port>:\d+)?/");
      Match m = r.Match(url);
      if (m.Success)
         Console.WriteLine(r.Match(url).Result("${proto}${port}")); 
   }
}
// The example displays the following output:
//       http:8080

The regular expression pattern ^(?<proto>\w+)://[^/]+?(?<port>:\d+)?/ can be interpreted as shown in the following table.

Pattern

Description

^

Begin the match at the start of the string.

(?<proto>\w+)

Match one or more word characters. Name this group proto.

://

Match a colon followed by two slash marks.

[^/]+?

Match one or more occurrences (but as few as possible) of any character other than a slash mark.

(?<port>:\d+)?

Match zero or one occurrence of a colon followed by one or more digit characters. Name this group port.

/

Match a slash mark.

The Match.Result method expands the ${proto}${port} replacement sequence, which concatenates the value of the two named groups captured in the regular expression pattern. It is a convenient alternative to explicitly concatenating the strings retrieved from the collection object returned by the Match.Groups property.

The example uses the Match.Result method with two substitutions, ${proto} and ${port}, to include the captured groups in the output string. You can retrieve the captured groups from the match's GroupCollection object instead, as the following code shows.

Console.WriteLine(m.Groups("proto").Value + m.Groups("port").Value)
Console.WriteLine(m.Groups["proto"].Value + m.Groups["port"].Value); 

See Also

Other Resources

.NET Framework Regular Expressions