PHP / RegEx - Convert URLs to links by detecting .com/.net/.org/.edu etc

Question

I know there have been many questions asking for help converting URLs to clickable links in strings, but I haven\'t found quite what I\'m looking for.

I want to be a

Answer 1

Thanks a ton. I modified his final solution to allow all domains (.ca, .co.uk), not just the specified ones.

$html = preg_replace_callback('#(\s|^)((https?://)?(\w|-)+(\.[a-z]{2,3})+(\:[0-9]+)?(?:/[^\s]*)?)(?=\s|\b)#is',
    create_function('$m', 'if (!preg_match("#^(https?://)#", $m[2])) return $m[1]."<a href=\"http://".$m[2]."\" target=\"blank\">".$m[2]."</a>"; else return $m[1]."<a href=\"".$m[2]."\" target=\"blank\">".$m[2]."</a>";'),
    $url);

Answer 2

'/(http(s)?:\/\/)?[\w\/\.]+(\.((com)|(edu)|(net)|(org)))[\w\/]*/'

That works for your examples. You might want to add extra characters support for "-", "&", "?", ":", etc in the last bracket.

'/(http(s)?:\/\/)?[\w\/\.]+(\.((com)|(edu)|(net)|(org)))[\w\/\?=&-;]*/'

This will support parameters and port numbers.

eg.: www.foo.ca:8888/test?param1=val1&param2=val2

Answer 3

You can use this regex:

#(\s|^)((?:https?://)?\w+(?:\.\w+)+(?<=\.(net|org|edu|com))(?:/[^\s]*|))(?=\s|\b)#is

Code:

$arr = array(
'http://www.domain.com/?foo=bar',
'http://www.that"sallfolks.com',
'This is really cool site: https://www.domain.net/ isn\'t it?',
'http://subdomain.domain.org',
'www.domain.com/folder',
'Hello! You can visit vertigofx.com/mysite/rocks for some awesome pictures, or just go to vertigofx.com by itself',
'subdomain.domain.net',
'subdomain.domain.edu/folder/subfolder',
'Hello! Check out my site at domain.net!',
'welcome.to.computers',
'Hello.Come visit oursite.com!',
'foo.bar',
'domain.com/folder',

);
foreach($arr as $url) {   
   $link = preg_replace_callback('#(\s|^)((?:https?://)?\w+(?:\.\w+)+(?<=\.(net|org|edu|com))(?:/[^\s]*|))(?=\s|\b)#is',
           create_function('$m', 'if (!preg_match("#^(https?://)#", $m[2]))
               return $m[1]."<a href=\"http://".$m[2]."\">".$m[2]."</a>"; else return $m[1]."<a href=\"".$m[2]."\">".$m[2]."</a>";'),
           $url);
   echo $link . "\n";

OUTPUT:

<a href="http://www.domain.com/?foo=bar">http://www.domain.com/?foo=bar</a>
http://www.that"sallfolks.com
This is really cool site: <a href="https://www.domain.net">https://www.domain.net</a>/ isn't it?
<a href="http://subdomain.domain.org">http://subdomain.domain.org</a>
<a href="http://www.domain.com/folder">www.domain.com/folder</a>
Hello! You can visit <a href="http://vertigofx.com/mysite/rocks">vertigofx.com/mysite/rocks</a> for some awesome pictures, or just go to <a href="http://vertigofx.com">vertigofx.com</a> by itself
<a href="http://subdomain.domain.net">subdomain.domain.net</a>
<a href="http://subdomain.domain.edu/folder/subfolder">subdomain.domain.edu/folder/subfolder</a>
Hello! Check out my site at <a href="http://domain.net">domain.net</a>!
welcome.to.computers
Hello.Come visit <a href="http://oursite.com">oursite.com</a>!
foo.bar
<a href="http://domain.com/folder">domain.com/folder</a>

PS: This regex only supports http and https scheme in URL. So eg: if you want to support ftp also then you need to modify the regex a little.