🐛 [Bug] fixUrls() consumes leading spaces and only matches URLs at end of line

[mahula]

🐛 Bug

The fixUrls() function in lib/src/Utils/ReplaceURLs.ts has two related bugs that corrupt text formatting when processing URLs.

Bug 1: Leading Space Consumption

Description: When fixUrls() processes a URL, it removes the space that precedes the URL, causing words to merge together.

Current Behavior:

fixUrls('Visit example.com')
// Returns: 'Visithttps://example.com'
// Expected: 'Visit https://example.com'

Root Cause: Line 8 in ReplaceURLs.ts:

let hyperlink = url.replace(' ', '')  // Removes space
return hyperlink                       // Returns without restoring space

The regex captures a leading space with (^| ) to distinguish naked URLs from text, but the replacement callback removes this space and never restores it.

Bug 2: End-of-Line Only Matching

Description: The urlRegex uses a $ (end of line) anchor, causing it to only match the last URL on each line. Multiple URLs per line are not all processed.

Current Behavior:

fixUrls('First https://a.com then https://b.com')
// Returns: 'First https://a.com thenhttps://b.com'
// Only the second URL is matched (and space consumed)
// Expected: Both URLs should be left unchanged (already have https://)

Root Cause: Line 3 in ReplaceURLs.ts:

const urlRegex = /(^| )(http:\/\/www\.|https:\/\/www\.|http:\/\/|https:\/\/)?[a-z0-9]+([\-\.]{1}[a-z0-9]+)*\.[a-z]{2,10}(:[0-9]{1,10})?(\/.*)?$/gm
//                                                                                                                                        ^ This $ limits to end of line

Impact Assessment

Current practical impact is LOW because:

1. fixUrls() is primarily used in preprocessMarkdown.ts which immediately follows with convertNakedUrls() that uses a different, working regex
2. Video autolinks <url> are not affected (the > prevents matching)
3. URLs that already have https:// are processed but the output is still valid

However, the bugs could cause issues if:

• fixUrls() is used elsewhere in isolation
• Users type multiple naked URLs on the same line
• Text formatting matters for display before markdown conversion

Git History

• Introduced in commit bbe755a0 (Aug 30, 2023): "ItemViewPopup TextView styling / url formatting"
• The original replaceURLs() function returned <a> tags that included the space in the visible text
• The refactor to fixUrls() broke the space preservation

Suggested Fix

Option A: Fix the function (minimal change)

export function fixUrls(message: string): string {
  message = message.replace(urlRegex, function (url) {
    // Preserve leading space if present
    const hasLeadingSpace = url.startsWith(' ')
    let hyperlink = url.trim()

    if (!/^https?:\/\//.exec(hyperlink)) {
      hyperlink = 'https://' + hyperlink
    }
    // Restore leading space
    return hasLeadingSpace ? ' ' + hyperlink : hyperlink
  })

  return message
}

Option B: Fix regex to match multiple URLs per line

Remove the $ anchor and adjust the regex to properly terminate URL matching:

export const urlRegex =
  /(^| )(https?:\/\/)?[a-z0-9]+([\-\.]{1}[a-z0-9]+)*\.[a-z]{2,10}(:[0-9]{1,10})?(\/[^\s]*)?(?=\s|$)/gim

Option C: Remove fixUrls() from preprocessing pipeline

Since convertNakedUrls() in preprocessMarkdown.ts uses its own working regex, consider whether fixUrls() is still needed in the pipeline at all.

Reproduction Steps

1. Call fixUrls('Visit example.com')
2. Observe output is 'Visithttps://example.com' (missing space)

Or:

1. Call fixUrls('Check a.com and b.com')
2. Observe only b.com gets https:// prefix

Environment

• File: lib/src/Utils/ReplaceURLs.ts
• Discovered during: TipTap migration testing
• Original commit: bbe755a0 (Aug 2023)