Extract links from string optimization

And that is the answer for Swift 5.0

let text = "http://www.google.com. http://www.bla.com"

func checkForUrls(text: String) -> [URL] {
    let types: NSTextCheckingResult.CheckingType = .link

    do {
        let detector = try NSDataDetector(types: types.rawValue)

        let matches = detector.matches(in: text, options: .reportCompletion, range: NSMakeRange(0, text.count))
    
        return matches.compactMap({$0.url})
    } catch let error {
        debugPrint(error.localizedDescription)
    }

    return []
}

checkForUrls(text: text)

Very helpful thread! Here's an example that worked in Swift 1.2, based on Victor Sigler's answer.

    // extract first link (if available) and open it!
    let text = "How technology is changing our relationships to each other: http://t.ted.com/mzRtRfX"
    let types: NSTextCheckingType = .Link

    do {
        let detector = try NSDataDetector(types: types.rawValue)
        let matches = detector.matchesInString(text, options: .ReportCompletion, range: NSMakeRange(0, text.characters.count))
        if matches.count > 0 {
            let url = matches[0].URL!
            print("Opening URL: \(url)")
            UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(url)
        }

    } catch {
        // none found or some other issue
        print ("error in findAndOpenURL detector")
    }

Like AdamPro13 said above using NSDataDetector you can easily get all the URLs, see it the following code :

let text = "http://www.google.com. http://www.bla.com"
let types: NSTextCheckingType = .Link
var error : NSError?

let detector = NSDataDetector(types: types.rawValue, error: &error)        
var matches = detector!.matchesInString(text, options: nil, range: NSMakeRange(0, count(text)))

for match in matches {
   println(match.URL!)
}

It outputs :

http://www.google.com
http://www.bla.com

Updated to Swift 2.0

let text = "http://www.google.com. http://www.bla.com"
let types: NSTextCheckingType = .Link

let detector = try? NSDataDetector(types: types.rawValue)

guard let detect = detector else {
   return
}

let matches = detect.matchesInString(text, options: .ReportCompletion, range: NSMakeRange(0, text.characters.count))

for match in matches {
    print(match.URL!)
}

Remember to use the guard statement in the above case it must be inside a function or loop.

I hope this help.