Are there any specific PHP functions or libraries that can simplify URL validation with regular expressions?

Validating URLs using regular expressions can be complex and error-prone. To simplify this process, you can use the `filter_var` function in PHP with the `FILTER_VALIDATE_URL` filter. This function will validate a URL based on its syntax and structure, providing a more reliable validation method compared to regular expressions.

$url = "https://www.example.com";

if (filter_var($url, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL)) {
    echo "URL is valid";
} else {
    echo "URL is not valid";
}