React Native AutoLink

Auto-Linking component for React Native. Parses text and wraps URLs, phone numbers, emails, social handles, hashtags, and more with Text nodes and onPress handlers.

New in v4: Autolink any pattern using custom regex matchers and click handlers! Thanks @lafiosca!

Installation

npm i react-native-autolink

Usage

Simply import the library and enable the link types you want to auto-link:

import Autolink from 'react-native-autolink';

const MyComponent = () => (
  <Autolink
    // Required: the text to parse for links
    text="This is the string to parse for urls (https://github.com/joshswan/react-native-autolink), phone numbers (415-555-5555), emails (josh@example.com), mentions/handles (@twitter), and hashtags (#exciting)"
    // Optional: enable email linking
    email
    // Optional: enable hashtag linking to instagram
    hashtag="instagram"
    // Optional: enable @username linking to twitter
    mention="twitter"
    // Optional: enable phone linking
    phone="sms"
    // Optional: enable URL linking
    url
    // Optional: custom linking matchers
    matchers={[MyCustomTextMatcher]}
  />
);

Props

• component?
• email?
• hashtag?
• linkProps?
• linkStyle?
• matchers?
• mention?
• onPress?
• onLongPress?
• phone?
• renderLink?
• renderText?
• showAlert?
• stripPrefix?
• stripTrailingSlash?
• text
• textProps?
• truncate?
• truncateChars?
• truncateLocation?
• url?
• useNativeSchemes?

Note: All other props (e.g. numberOfLines, style, etc.) will be passed through to the container component, which is either Text (default) or a custom component supplied to the component prop.

component

Type	Required	Default	Description
React.ComponentType	No	Text	Override the component used as the output container.

<Autolink text={text} component={View} />

email

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean	No	true	Whether to link emails (mailto:{email}).

<Autolink text={text} email={false} />

hashtag

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean or string	No	false	Whether to link hashtags to supplied service. Possible values: false (disabled), "facebook", "instagram", "twitter".

<Autolink text={text} hashtag="facebook" />

linkProps

Type	Required	Default	Description
TextProps	No	{}	Attributes applied to link Text components.

<Autolink text={text} linkProps={{ suppressHighlighting: true, testID: 'link' }} />

linkStyle

Type	Required	Default	Description
TextStyle	No	{}	Styles applied to link Text components. Note: Will be overriden if style supplied in linkProps.

<Autolink text={text} linkStyle={{ color: 'blue' }} />

matchers

Type	Required	Default	Description
CustomMatcher[]	No		Array of custom matcher objects with optional press handlers, styling, and text/url extraction.

See the Custom Matchers section below for more information.

<Autolink text={text} matchers={[MyCustomMatcher]} />

mention

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean or string	No	false	Whether to link mentions/handles to supplied service. Possible values: false (disabled), "instagram", "soundcloud", "twitter".

<Autolink text={text} mention="instagram" />

onPress

Type	Required	Default	Description
function	No		Override default link press behavior. Signature: (url: string, match: Match) => void.

<Autolink
  text={text}
  onPress={(url, match) => {
    switch (match.getType()) {
      case 'mention':
        Alert.alert('Mention pressed!');
      default:
        Alert.alert('Link pressed!');
    }
  }}
/>

onLongPress

Type	Required	Default	Description
function	No	none	Handle link long press events. Signature: (url: string, match: Match) => void.

<Autolink
  text={text}
  onLongPress={(url, match) => {
    switch (match.getType()) {
      case 'mention':
        Alert.alert('Mention long pressed!');
      default:
        Alert.alert('Link long pressed!');
    }
  }}
/>

phone

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean or string	No	true	Whether to link phone numbers. Possible values: false (disabled), true (tel:{number}), "sms" or "text" (sms:{number}).

Note: Currently, only US numbers are supported.

<Autolink text={text} phone="sms" />

renderLink

Type	Required	Default	Description
function	No		Override default link rendering behavior. Signature: (text: string, match: Match, index: number) => React.ReactNode.

Note: You'll need to handle press logic yourself when using renderLink.

<Autolink
  text={text}
  component={View}
  renderLink={(text, match) => <MyLinkPreviewComponent url={match.getAnchorHref()} />}
/>

renderText

Type	Required	Default	Description
function	No		Override default text rendering behavior. Signature: (text: string, index: number) => React.ReactNode.

<Autolink
  text={text}
  component={View}
  renderText={(text) => <MyTypographyComponent>{text}</MyTypographyComponent>}
/>

showAlert

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean	No	false	Whether to display an alert before leaving the app (for privacy or accidental clicks).

<Autolink text={text} showAlert />

stripPrefix

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean	No	true	Whether to strip protocol from URL link text (e.g. https://github.com -> github.com).

<Autolink text={text} stripPrefix={false} />

stripTrailingSlash

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean	No	true	Whether to strip trailing slashes from URL link text (e.g. github.com/ -> github.com).

<Autolink text={text} stripTrailingSlash={false} />

text

Type	Required	Default	Description
string	Yes		The string to parse for links.

<Autolink text={text} />

textProps

Type	Required	Default	Description
TextProps	No	{}	Attributes applied to non-link Text components.

<Autolink text={text} textProps={{ selectable: false }} />

truncate

Type	Required	Default	Description
number	No	0	Maximum length of URL link text. Possible values: 0 (disabled), 1+ (maximum length).

<Autolink text={text} truncate={20} />

truncateChars

Type	Required	Default	Description
string	No	..	Characters to replace truncated URL link text segments with (e.g. github.com/../repo)

<Autolink text={text} truncateChars="**" />

truncateLocation

Type	Required	Default	Description
string	No	"smart"	Override truncation location. Possible values: "smart", "end", "middle".

<Autolink text={text} truncateLocation="end" />

url

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean or object	No	true	Whether to link URLs. Possible values: false (disabled), true, UrlConfig (see below).

type UrlConfig = {
  // Whether to link URLs prefixed with a scheme (e.g. https://github.com)
  schemeMatches?: boolean,
  // Whether to link URLs prefix with www (e.g. www.github.com)
  wwwMatches?: boolean,
  // Whether to link URLs with TLDs but not scheme or www prefixs (e.g. github.com)
  tldMatches?: boolean,
};

<Autolink text={text} url={false} />
<Autolink text={text} url={{ tldMatches: false }} />

useNativeSchemes

Type	Required	Default	Description
boolean	No	false	Whether to use native app schemes (e.g. twitter://) rather than web URLs when linking to services for hashtag and mention links.

Note: Prior to v4, the webFallback prop enabled a check to see whether the user had a particular app installed using Linking.canOpenUrl, falling back to a web link if not. Due to permissions requirements on iOS and upcoming changes on Android, this feature was removed and instead, services will be linked to the web versions by default. Use the useNativeSchemes prop to enable native app linking or use the onPress and/or matchers props to provide your own custom logic for linking and opening apps.

Custom Matchers

Custom matchers allow for complete customization of Autolink. You can match text based on a custom regular expression, supply custom onPress and onLongPress handlers, custom link styles, and even custom functions for creating the text and/or URL for the match.

Custom matchers are particularly useful for matching other types of data that aren't supported out-of-the-box (e.g. international phone numbers) and for mixing internal app navigation links with standard external links within the same block of content.

Check out the section below for a few ready-to-go custom matchers.

interface CustomMatcher {
  /* Regular expression pattern to match/link user-specified patterns */
  pattern: RegExp;
  /* Custom press handler for links of this type */
  onPress?: (match: CustomMatch) => void;
  /* Custom long-press handler for links of this type */
  onLongPress?: (match: CustomMatch) => void;
  /* Custom styling for links of this type */
  style?: StyleProp<TextStyle>;
  /* Custom type/identifier for use with match.getType() */
  type?: string;
  /* Custom function for extracting link text using regex replacer args */
  getLinkText?: (replacerArgs: ReplacerArgs) => string;
  /* Custom function for extracting link URL using regex replacer args */
  getLinkUrl?: (replacerArgs: ReplacerArgs) => string;
  /* Custom function for rendering link - remember to attach press handlers! */
  renderLink?: (text: string, match: CustomMatch, index: number) => React.ReactNode;
}

The ReplacerArgs type supplied to getLinkText and getLinkUrl is an array containing the variadic arguments passed to a replacer function as provided to String.replace. Essentially, element 0 is the entire matched link, and elements 1 through N are any captured subexpressions. More details can be found in the documentation on MDN.

The CustomMatch class supplied to onPress and onLongPress (or their non-custom-matcher companions above) includes a few methods that can be useful as well, e.g. getMatcher() to return the CustomMatcher object and getReplacerArgs to return the same array discussed above.

Custom Matcher Usage

When using the built-in link handling, the getLinkUrl function can be provided to determine the URL to which the link should navigate. Alternatively the onPress function will bypass that entirely, allowing the user to provide custom handling specific to this link type, e.g. for navigating within the application.

The following hypothetical example handles custom @-mention links of the format @[Name](userId), navigating to a user profile screen:

<Autolink
  text={text}
  matchers={[
    {
      pattern: /@\[([^[]*)]\(([^(^)]*)\)/g,
      style: { color: '#ff00ff' },
      getLinkText: (replacerArgs) => `@${replacerArgs[1]}`,
      onPress: (match) => {
        navigate('userProfile', { userId: match.getReplacerArgs()[2] });
      },
    },
  ]}
/>

Available Matchers

A few custom matchers (e.g. LatLngMatcher, IntlPhoneMatcher, PhoneMatchersByCountry) are already included and available for use. They're just objects so they're easily customizable too! PRs are welcome for additional custom matchers that could be useful to the community.

import { Autolink, LatLngMatcher } from 'react-native-autolink';

<Autolink text="Some text with locations 32.123, -117.123" matchers={[LatLngMatcher]} />;

// Or customize the matcher
const MyLatLngMatcher = { ...LatLngMatcher, onPress: () => alert('LatLng pressed!') };

<Autolink text={text} matchers={[MyLatLngMatcher]} />;

Supported By

License

 Copyright (c) 2016-2023 Josh Swan

 Licensed under the The MIT License (MIT) (the "License");
 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 You may obtain a copy of the License at

    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joshswan/react-native-autolink/master/LICENSE

 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.

 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.