title: Format a website´s URL as a string with http:// upfront
body: <p>I have a comment system that allows auto linking of url. I am using cakephp but the solution is more just PHP. here is what is happening.</p>
  
  <p>if the user enters fully qualified url with <code>http://</code> or <code>https://</code> everything is fine.
  but if they enter <code>www.scoobydoobydoo.com</code> it turns into <code>http://cool-domain.com/www.scoobydoobydoo.com</code>. basically cakephp understands that http|https is an external url so it works with http|https not otherwise.</p>
  
  <p>My idea was to do some kind of str stuff on the url and get it to insert the http if not present. unfortunately whatever i try only makes it worse. I am noob :) any help / pointer is appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>thanks </p>
  
  <p>EDIT: posting solution snippet. may not be the best but thanks to answer at least I have something.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?php
          $proto_scheme = parse_url($webAddress,PHP_URL_SCHEME);
      if((!stristr($proto_scheme,'http')) || (!stristr($proto_scheme,'http'))){
          $webAddress = 'http://'.$webAddress;
      }
  ?&gt;
  </code></pre>