PHP: How to use the Twitter API's data to convert URLs, mentions, and hastags in tweets to links?

Question

I\'m really stumped on how Twitter expects users of its API to convert the plaintext tweets it sends to properly linked HTML.

Here\'s the deal: Twitter\'s JSON API sends

Answer 1

It's an edge case but the use of str_replace() in Styledev's answer could cause issues if one entity is contained within another. For example, "I'm a genius! #me #mensa" could become "I'm a genius! #me #mensa" if the shorter entity is substituted first.

This solution avoids that problem:

text);
    $characters = preg_split('//u', $apiResponseTweetObject->text, null, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

    // Insert starting and closing link tags at indices...

    // ... for @user_mentions
    foreach ($apiResponseTweetObject->entities->user_mentions as $entity) {
        $link = "https://twitter.com/" . $entity->screen_name;          
        $characters[$entity->indices[0]] = "" . $characters[$entity->indices[0]];
        $characters[$entity->indices[1] - 1] .= "";         
    }               

    // ... for #hashtags
    foreach ($apiResponseTweetObject->entities->hashtags as $entity) {
        $link = "https://twitter.com/search?q=%23" . $entity->text;         
        $characters[$entity->indices[0]] = "" . $characters[$entity->indices[0]];
        $characters[$entity->indices[1] - 1] .= "";         
    }

    // ... for http://urls
    foreach ($apiResponseTweetObject->entities->urls as $entity) {
        $link = $entity->expanded_url;          
        $characters[$entity->indices[0]] = "" . $characters[$entity->indices[0]];
        $characters[$entity->indices[1] - 1] .= "";         
    }

    // ... for media
    foreach ($apiResponseTweetObject->entities->media as $entity) {
        $link = $entity->expanded_url;          
        $characters[$entity->indices[0]] = "" . $characters[$entity->indices[0]];
        $characters[$entity->indices[1] - 1] .= "";         
    }

    // Convert array back to string
    return implode('', $characters);

}
?>