Oh! Is this what I was hoping to come up with when I try using regex?

yes, in the past I was programming on different languages from Asm x86 to ABAP/4, and they did not have regular expression functionality) so I was simply not familiar with this, thus it looked unreadable for me at that time.

I am not good with capture groups yet. I'm only good with assertions, character classes, and quantifiers. I will get good with capture groups eventually.

It's not hard to understand, all you have to do is write a comment explaining what it does and you can also tell by looking at the "http" what it is that we are looking for.

wow i don't understand regex yet

using regex is clever...

thank you very much. I finally figured it out

My favorite solutions use regex! But unfortunately they can only be understood by regex wizards :(

Still doesn't work with URLs using another subdomain than www

I've learned a lot from this! Great solution.

I swear to myself I'll learn regex someday.
That day hasn't come yet, but it's always good to see people that put in the work.

Surprising. Wish I could be that smart.

It is a non capturing group, so you can group a set of characters and optionalise them. https://www.stefanjudis.com/today-i-learned/non-capturing-groups-in-regular-expressions/

Try lookup Cubic Sequences

what is the "(?:)" for?, I read almost everything about regex except this