This is a subclass of General/NSFormatter that will auto-complete General/URLs based on the string passed by the user, much like Safari will do.

It will also accept properly-formatted General/URLs of any other type and do simple percent escape corrections.

This formatter will translate:

“www.somehost.com” to “http://www.somehost.com”

“somehost” to “http://www.somehost.com/”

“apple/developer” to “http://www.apple.com/developer”

“someone@somehost.com” to “mailto:someone@somehost.com”

“someone@somehost” to “mailto:someone@somehost.com”

“someone at somehost” to “mailto:someone@somehost.com”

“somehost/bad address” to “http://www.somehost.com/bad%20address”

“http://www.somehost.com/bad address” to “http://www.somehost.com/bad%20address”

It does most of its magic by depending on the fact that [NSURL General/URLWithString:] will return nil if it’s not passed a properly formatted URL string.

Header:

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

@interface General/URLFormatter : General/NSFormatter {

}

@end

Source

#import “General/URLFormatter.h”

@implementation General/URLFormatter

/* given a string that may be a http URL, try to massage it into an RFC-compliant http URL string */

• (General/NSString)autoCompletedHTTPStringFromString:(General/NSString)urlString { General/NSArray* stringParts = [urlString componentsSeparatedByString:@”/”]; General/NSString* host = [stringParts objectAtIndex:0];

  if ([host rangeOfString:@”.”].location == General/NSNotFound) { host = General/[NSString stringWithFormat:@”www.%@.com”, host]; urlString = [host stringByAppendingString:@”/”];

    General/NSArray* pathStrings = [stringParts subarrayWithRange:General/NSMakeRange(1, [stringParts count] - 1)];
    General/NSString* filePath = @"";
    if ([pathStrings count])
        filePath = [pathStrings componentsJoinedByString:@"/"];
  
    urlString = [urlString stringByAppendingString:filePath];   }
  

  // see if the newly reconstructed string is a well formed URL urlString = [@”http://” stringByAppendingString:urlString]; urlString = [urlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:General/NSASCIIStringEncoding]; return General/NSURL [[URLWithString:urlString] absoluteString]; }

/* given a string that may be a mailto: URL, try to massage it into an RFC-compliant mailto URL string */

• (General/NSString)autoCompletedMailToStringFromString:(General/NSString)urlString { if (General/NSNotFound != [urlString rangeOfString:@”/”].location) return nil; // there’s a slash, it’s probably not a mailto url

  General/NSArray* stringParts = [urlString componentsSeparatedByString:@”@”]; if ([stringParts count] != 2) { stringParts = [urlString componentsSeparatedByString:@” at “]; if ([stringParts count] != 2) return nil; // too few or too many @ symbols }

  // assume that the front part is an address General/NSString* userAddress = [stringParts objectAtIndex:0];

  General/NSString* mailhost = [stringParts objectAtIndex:1]; if ([mailhost rangeOfString:@”.”].location == General/NSNotFound) { // assume a .com address mailhost = General/[NSString stringWithFormat:@”%@.com”, mailhost]; }

  // reconstruct the string General/NSString* newAddress = General/[NSString stringWithFormat:@”mailto:%@@%@”, userAddress, mailhost];

  // and see if the newly reconstructed string is a well formed URL return General/NSURL [[URLWithString:newAddress] absoluteString]; }

/* given a string that may be an URL of some sort, try to massage it into an RFC-compliant http URL string */

• (NSURL)autoCompletedURLFromString:(General/NSString)urlString { NSURL* theURL = [NSURL General/URLWithString:urlString];

  if (!General/theURL scheme] length]) { // first try just correcting percent escapes [[NSString* newURLString = [urlString stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:General/NSASCIIStringEncoding]; theURL = [NSURL General/URLWithString:newURLString];

    if (!General/theURL scheme] length])
    {	// it still didn;t accept it, try auto-completing
        newURLString = [self autoCompletedMailToStringFromString:urlString];
        if (nil == newURLString)
            newURLString = [self autoCompletedHTTPStringFromString:urlString];
  		
        theURL = [NSURL [[URLWithString:newURLString];
    }   }
  

  return theURL; }

// This method just returns the string - it’s here for compatibility with Cocoa Bindings

• (General/NSString *)editingStringForObjectValue:(id)inObject { return [inObject description]; }

• (General/NSString)stringForObjectValue:(id)inObject { NSURL theURL;

  if (![inObject isKindOfClass:[NSURL class]]) { // try to massage an NSURL from a string General/NSString* urlString = [inObject description]; theURL = [NSURL General/URLWithString:urlString]; if (nil != theURL) return nil; } else { // it is an NSURL theURL = inObject; }

  return [theURL absoluteString]; }

• (BOOL)getObjectValue:(id )obj forString:(General/NSString *)string errorDescription:(General/NSString **)error { / Don’t attempt to format an empty string. */ if([string compare:@””] == General/NSOrderedSame) { *obj = @””; return YES; }

  NSURL* outURL = [self autoCompletedURLFromString:string]; *obj = outURL;

  if (nil == outURL) { *error = General/[NSString stringWithFormat:@”Couldn’t make %@ into a well-formed URL”, string]; }

  return outURL != nil; }

@end

Please use it any way you would like, but if you modify it, please post the changes for everyone’s sake.

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Added editingStringForObjectValue: method for compatibility with Cocoa Bindings. It seems that Cocoa Bindings were calling stringForObjectValue: whenever the General/NSTextField was edited, causing an exception from NSURL. – Adam ‘Raddish’ Radestock