Links In PHP

**david** · 08-24-2002, 03:17 PM

For part of my site I wanted to format plain text from a database so that URLs would appear as links in HTML. I am using the following code:

PHP Code:


			
function link_urls($string) {

  //change single to double quotes (only necessary if you work with databases)

  $string = ereg_replace("\'", "\"", $string);

  //change full stops and question marks that don't need to be linked

  $string = ereg_replace("\? ", " question_mark ", $string);

  $string = ereg_replace("\?\r\n"," question_mark_new_line ", $string);

  $string = ereg_replace("\. ", " full_stop ", $string);

  $string = ereg_replace("\.\r\n"," full_stop_new_line ", $string);

  $string = eregi_replace("(([url]ftp://[/url])|([url]http://[/url])|(www))(([a-z0-9.\-])*)(@)?(([a-z0-9\.])*)(([:/])?)((([a-z0-9]*)(@?)/*)+([.a-z]{2,4}){1})?((\??[a-z0-9\=]*)?)((\&[a-z0-9\=]*)?)(([\.a-z]){2,4})?", "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>", $string);

  //change back dots and question marks

  $string = ereg_replace(" full_stop_new_line ", "\.\r\n", $string);

  $string = ereg_replace(" full_stop", "\.", $string);

  $string = ereg_replace(" question_mark_new_line ", "\?\r\n", $string);

  $string = ereg_replace(" question_mark", "\?", $string);

  return $string;

}

but I have a problem that it can't cope with dashes in URLs (see

this page for an example.

As I didn't write that code above (and don't really understand how it works) I can't edit it to overcome the problem.

Does anyone know what should be changed and how?

**DaveMo~** · 08-27-2002, 12:12 AM

No help with this one yet? Where's all our PHP programmers?

Dave

**AhmedF** · 08-27-2002, 02:35 AM

Sigh

So many regular exprssions its hurting my brain.

Can you tell me EXACTLY What you want it do [as I got confused] and Ill whip something up NP

**ghettocars** · 08-27-2002, 08:02 AM

lol i would help you if i knew more PHP
then again david taught me PHP, so really the student cant help the master

sorry

**david** · 08-28-2002, 05:09 PM

Thanks for the response AhmedF.

Basically the idea is that I can present my user-entered content better. Users enter the plain text of their questions, which often include links. What I am trying to do is, when I output the data from the database, format the link in the browser so that it is clickable.

That code (which I got from PHPBuilder I think) works for the majority of links, e.g.:
http://www.mysite.com
http://www.mysite.com/apage/
http://www.mysite.com/something/page.htm

but for some reason can't cope with:
http://www.mysite.com/something-else/page.htm
because it stops the link at -

I'd really appreciate it if you could edit that code slightly or make some to do that

**Darkfire001** · 08-28-2002, 07:08 PM

I believe that there is some way to skirt past that, since it brings up Quote symbols and such in my PHP Guide but I bet you people have already thought of that.

**AhmedF** · 08-29-2002, 01:45 AM

Yech

I suck with regular exprssions.

BUT ...

try changing '[a-z0-9]'
to :alpha: or :alphanum:

Basically .. teh script is looking for letters a to z, and numbers 0 to 9 ... the '-' is neither ... so it chokes. By telling to to look for 'alphanumeric' instead, it should be able to parse the '-'

If this doesnt work, we can write a bit simpler, and maybe not as fact strpos and str_replace replacement

**david** · 09-01-2002, 04:51 PM

Thanks for thetip AhmedF, but unfortunately it didn't seem to fix the problem

Any other ideas?

**Tiggy** · 09-12-2002, 07:37 PM

Try changing [a-z0-9] to [a-z0-9.-_~] you should be able to put in any new characters to the expression at this point... I see things link [a-z0-9.-] in there, expand the brackets with new characters (at the end, so it doesn't interfere with your ranges)

Should do the trick, not that I know PHP, but I've done a few regex in my time.