how to replace an url in a string

[hos2]

who knows the easiest way to replace an url in a string so that it becomes an url when loaded again

so
bbla bla bla [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mywebsite.com[/URL] blabla

translate to

bbla bla bla <a href=[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mywebsite.com[/URL] >[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mywebsite.com</a>[/URL] blabla

after the url it's possible to have a return or an space

does anybody know a neat way to do this ??

 

[sleipnir214]

A regular expression should do it.

Something like:

<?php
$string = 'bbla bla bla [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mywebsite.com[/URL] blabla
blablia bla blablabla bla ftp://ftp.foo.com/foo/bar/foo.txt bla';

print preg_replace ('/((http|ftp):\/\/([a-z0-1_.]+\/*)+)/i', '<a href=&quot;$1&quot;>$1</a>', $string);
?>

Will output:

[ignore]bbla bla bla <a href=&quot;

http://www.mywebsite.com&quot;>http://www.mywebsite.com</a>

blabla
blablia bla blablabla bla <a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.foo.com/foo/bar/foo.txt&quot;>ftp://ftp.foo.com/foo/bar/foo.txt</a> bla[/ignore]

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[hos2]

ah that almost works perfect. only how do I prefent that it will double preg_replace a url if someone has quoted a message, the a href is already in the message and then the url must not be replaced anymore ??

ps when I tried it with the link of this topic it stopped at

http://www.tek-

??

 

[hos2]

hmmmm and images should be treated differently. now I remember why I let this problem rest for a long time

think I have to examine the preg_replace manual

 

[sleipnir214]

oops. In the part of the regular expression that reads:

[ignore][a-z0-1_.][/ignore]

Change it to read:

[ignore][a-z0-1_.-][/ignore]

That'll take care of the &quot;ending at the dash&quot; problem.


However, you didn't ask about text that was already in the right form. That's a lot trickier -- regular expressions are designed to describe what is there, not what isn't.

I'm going to have to think about that one a while.

Making it specific to images and leaving alone things already in tags is probably going to take handing preg_replace() some match and replace arrays.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[hos2]

ah I've found something on

http://nl2.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php

that sounds helpfull

$txt = preg_replace( &quot;/(?<!<a href=\&quot;)((http|ftp)+(s)?:\/\/[^<>\s]+)/i&quot;, &quot;<a href=\&quot;\\0\&quot;>\\0</a>&quot;, $txt );

and now a way to exclude the imageslinks