Replace URLs in text with HTML links

Question

Here is a design though: For example is I put a link such as

http://example.com

in textarea. How do I get PHP t

Answer 1

While matching the full url spec is difficult, here's a regular expression that generally does a good job:

([\w-]+(\.[\w-]+)*@([a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*?\.[a-z]{2,6}|(\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3})(:\d{4})?)

To use this in preg_replace, however, you need to escape it. As so:

$pattern = "/([\\w-]+(\\.[\\w-]+)*@([a-z0-9-]+(\\.[a-z0-9-]+)*?\\.[a-z]{2,6}|(\\d{1,3}\\.){3}\\d{1,3})(:\\d{4})?)/";
$replaced_texttext = preg_replace($pattern, '<a href="$0" title="$0">$0</a>', $text);

Answer 2

As I mentioned in one of the comments above my VPS, which is running php 7, started emitting warnings Warning: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead. The buffer after the replacement was empty/false.

I have rewritten the code and made some improvements. If you think that you should be in the author section feel free to edit the comment above the function make_links_blank name. I am intentionally not using the closing php ?> to avoid inserting whitespace in the output.

<?php

class App_Updater_String_Util {
    public static function get_default_link_attribs( $regex_matches = [] ) {
        $t = ' target="_blank" ';
        return $t;
    }

    /**
     * App_Updater_String_Util::set_protocol();
     * @param string $link
     * @return string
     */
    public static function set_protocol( $link ) {
        if ( ! preg_match( '#^https?#si', $link ) ) {
            $link = 'http://' . $link;
        }
        return $link;
    }

/**
     * Goes through text and makes whatever text that look like a link an html link
     * which opens in a new tab/window (by adding target attribute).
     * 
     * Usage: App_Updater_String_Util::make_links_blank( $text );
     * 
     * @param str $text
     * @return str
     * @see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1188129/replace-urls-in-text-with-html-links
     * @author Angel.King.47 | http://dashee.co.uk
     * @author Svetoslav Marinov (Slavi) | http://orbisius.com
     */
    public static function make_links_blank( $text ) {
        $patterns = [
            '#(?(?=<a[^>]*>.+?<\/a>)
                 (?:<a[^>]*>.+<\/a>)
                 |
                 ([^="\']?)((?:https?|ftp):\/\/[^<> \n\r]+)
             )#six' => function ( $matches ) {
                $r1 = empty( $matches[1] ) ? '' : $matches[1];
                $r2 = empty( $matches[2] ) ? '' : $matches[2];
                $r3 = empty( $matches[3] ) ? '' : $matches[3];

                $r2 = empty( $r2 ) ? '' : App_Updater_String_Util::set_protocol( $r2 );
                $res = ! empty( $r2 ) ? "$r1<a href=\"$r2\">$r2</a>$r3" : $matches[0];
                $res = stripslashes( $res );

                return $res;
             },

            '#(^|\s)((?:https?://|www\.|https?://www\.)[^<>\ \n\r]+)#six' => function ( $matches ) {
                $r1 = empty( $matches[1] ) ? '' : $matches[1];
                $r2 = empty( $matches[2] ) ? '' : $matches[2];
                $r3 = empty( $matches[3] ) ? '' : $matches[3];

                $r2 = ! empty( $r2 ) ? App_Updater_String_Util::set_protocol( $r2 ) : '';
                $res = ! empty( $r2 ) ? "$r1<a href=\"$r2\">$r2</a>$r3" : $matches[0];
                $res = stripslashes( $res );

                return $res;
            },

            // Remove any target attribs (if any)
            '#<a([^>]*)target="?[^"\']+"?#si' => '<a\\1',

            // Put the target attrib
            '#<a([^>]+)>#si' => '<a\\1 target="_blank">',

            // Make emails clickable Mailto links
            '/(([\w\-]+)(\\.[\w\-]+)*@([\w\-]+)
                (\\.[\w\-]+)*)/six' => function ( $matches ) {

                $r = $matches[0];
                $res = ! empty( $r ) ? "<a href=\"mailto:$r\">$r</a>" : $r;
                $res = stripslashes( $res );

                return $res;
            },
        ];

        foreach ( $patterns as $regex => $callback_or_replace ) {
            if ( is_callable( $callback_or_replace ) ) {
                $text = preg_replace_callback( $regex, $callback_or_replace, $text );
            } else {
                $text = preg_replace( $regex, $callback_or_replace, $text );
            }
        }

        return $text;
    }
}

Answer 3

this should get you email addresses:

$string = "bah bah steve@gmail.com foo";
$match = preg_match('/[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+(?:\.[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+)*\@[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+(?:\.[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+)+/', $string, $array);
print_r($array);

// outputs:
Array
(
    [0] => steve@gmail.com
)

Answer 4

This RegEx should match any link except for these new 3+ character toplevel domains...

{
  \\b
  # Match the leading part (proto://hostname, or just hostname)
  (
    # http://, or https:// leading part
    (https?)://[-\\w]+(\\.\\w[-\\w]*)+
  |
    # or, try to find a hostname with more specific sub-expression
    (?i: [a-z0-9] (?:[-a-z0-9]*[a-z0-9])? \\. )+ # sub domains
    # Now ending .com, etc. For these, require lowercase
    (?-i: com\\b
        | edu\\b
        | biz\\b
        | gov\\b
        | in(?:t|fo)\\b # .int or .info
        | mil\\b
        | net\\b
        | org\\b
        | [a-z][a-z]\\.[a-z][a-z]\\b # two-letter country code
    )
  )

  # Allow an optional port number
  ( : \\d+ )?

  # The rest of the URL is optional, and begins with /
  (
    /
    # The rest are heuristics for what seems to work well
    [^.!,?;"\\'()\[\]\{\}\s\x7F-\\xFF]*
    (
      [.!,?]+ [^.!,?;"\\'()\\[\\]\{\\}\s\\x7F-\\xFF]+
    )*
  )?
}ix

It's not written by me, I'm not quite sure where I got it from, sorry that I can give no credit...

Answer 5

This worked for me (turned one of the answers into a PHP function)

function make_urls_from_text ($text){
   return preg_replace('/(http[s]{0,1}\:\/\/\S{4,})\s{0,}/ims', '<a href="$1" target="_blank">$1 </a>', $text);
}