BBcode [url]www.example.com[/url] generates invalid link

[battye]

If the http:// or https:// prefix isn't included and the link is surrounded by [url]...[/url], the rendered link is incorrect.
CORRECT (no BBcode):

www.example.com

INCORRECT (includes [url] BBcode):

[url]www.example.com[/url]

For example, posting the latter markup on phpbb.com produces this target:

https://www.phpbb.com/community/www.example.com

The correct target is generated if the https prefix is included.

Reporter: HB
Created: 27/Nov/22 9:49 PM

[ECYaz]

This looks like it comes from phpBB itself rather than from here.

phpBB handles the two cases through different code. A bare address like www.example.com is picked up by the autolinker, which fills in the missing http://. The [url] BBCode instead takes whatever is inside it exactly as written, so with no scheme the link comes out as href="www.example.com", and the browser then reads that as relative to the current page. That is where the /community/ in the report comes from. [url=www.example.com]label[/url] does the same thing.

Titania does not parse BBCode itself, it calls phpBB's parser, and the output is the same either way, so there is nothing to change on this side.

One thing worth flagging for later. phpBB parses a post once and saves the result, so a fix in core would only apply to new posts. Existing ones need reparsing, and phpBB's reparse command does not cover our tables, so that part would come back here as a follow up.