[thelist] php ereg_replace help needed

[Kelly Hallman]

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Dunstan Orchard wrote:
>
> It does almost everything I want, with two exceptions:
> [1] if they miss off the 'http://' when inputing a url it doesn't insert
> the 'http' bit in the code and so the link doesn't work properly. <a
> href="www.1976design.com">www.1976design.com</a> instead of: <a
> href="http://www.1976design.com">www.1976design.com</a>

In my linking function I fixed this with a second regex replacement that
searches for href="www and alters it accordingly...

> [2] Is there a bit of code I can insert that stands for 'no character at
> all'. I want to catch instances where the user inputs a url immediately
> followed by a fullstop and then submits the form. I already catch
> fullstops followed by a space or a new line, but if I catch '.' then it
> messes up the fullstops in the actual url as well.

Maybe you are looking for \.$ or perhaps a positive lookahead (which you
probably need the preg_ function for) something like: \.(?=[\n\r\s])
(but don't quote me on that, or that even preg_ supports this)

> [3] Would it be better to use preg_replace instead of ereg_replace?

If ereg_replace does it for you, stick with it.  Use the preg_ functions
only if you need regex functionality not supported by the ereg_ variants

For posterity, here is my URL linking function, which does well:

function clickable($t) {

    // link URLs
    $t = eregi_replace( "(([[:alnum:]]+://)|www\.)([^[:space:]]*)".
        "([[:alnum:]#?/&=])", "<a href=\"\\1\\3\\4\" target=\"_blank\">".
        "\\1\\3\\4</a>", $t);

    // fix lazy URLs
    $t = eregi_replace("href=\"www","href=\"http://www",$t);

    // link mailtos
    $t = eregi_replace( "(([a-z0-9_]|\\-|\\.)+@([^[:space:]]*)".
        "([[:alnum:]-]))", "<a href=\"mailto:\\1\">\\1</a>", $t);

    // truncates long urls that can cause display problems (optional)
    $t = preg_replace("/>(([[:alnum:]]+:\/\/)|www\.)([^[:space:]]".
        "{30,40})([^[:space:]]*)([^[:space:]]{10,20})([[:alnum:]#?\/&=])".
        "</", ">\\1\\3...\\5\\6<", $t);

    return $t; }

--
Kelly Hallman
http://wrack.org/