urlize() makes a bit of a mess of links embedded in Markdown

[Simon Willison]

I have this input text:

Annotated versions of talks I have given, with extensive notes and additional links. Here's [how I make these](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/).

After running through Django's urlize helper function I got this:

... Here&#x27;s [how I make <a href="http://these](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/)" rel="nofollow">these](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/)</a>

[Simon Willison]

The ideal output for this example would be:

Annotated versions of talks I have given, with extensive notes and additional links. Here's [how I make these](<a href="https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/" rel="nofollow">https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/</a>).

Alternatively, not URLizing at all would be preferable to URLizing in a way that produces broken links.

I think what's happening here is the logic that looks for non-protocol links that include or end in .net may be kicking in, and deciding that the following is the URL that should be linked:

these](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/)

It's hard to suggest a fix for this. Ideally the code would "notice" that these](https://simonwillison.net/2023 is not a valid URL, but instead the logic is deciding that it's probably valid but should have http:// glued on the start.

Maybe we could have code that notices that http://these](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/6/annotated-presentations/) is NOT a valid URL - you cannot have ]( in the middle of the hostname portion - and hence decides not to URLize it at all.

(Background: the reason I'm seeing this is that my Django SQL Dashboard software tries to URLize text it displays, but has no way of knowing if a database column contains Markdown - this broken example came from ​https://simonwillison.net/dashboard/tags-with-descriptions/ - screenshot here: https://code.djangoproject.com/attachment/ticket/35533/screenshot-of-markdown.jpg )

[Simon Willison]

Current URLizer code is here: ​https://github.com/django/django/blob/2719a7f8c161233f45d34b624a9df9392c86cc1b/django/utils/html.py#L258-L413

[Sarah Boyce]

Thank you for the report! Replicated 👍

[Vaarun Sinha]

Hey DongwookKim0823? Are you actively working on this? Do you require any help? Would love to help

[DongwookKim0823]

Replying to Vaarun Sinha:

I'm currently working on this. I'll leave a comment if I need any help. Thank you! :)

[DongwookKim0823]

Replying to Vaarun Sinha:

I made some progress on this issue, but I think collaborating on a better solution would be great. I’d love to work together and find the best approach.