How to Check if a String is a Link Using WordPress Function

In WordPress, you can use the wp_http_validate_url() function to check if a string is a valid URL.

Here’s an example:

$url = 'https://example.com';

if ( wp_http_validate_url( $url ) ) {
    echo 'This is a valid URL!';
} else {
    echo 'This is not a URL or the URL is invalid.';
}

This function checks if the string conforms to the URL standard. If you just need to verify if a string is a URL in terms of syntax without additional checks, you can use the standard PHP filter filter_var:

$url = 'https://example.com';

if ( filter_var( $url, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL ) ) {
    echo 'This is a valid URL!';
} else {
    echo 'This is not a URL.';
}

Both methods work, but the first (using WordPress) takes into account the specifics of working within the CMS.