replace text with url in twitter feed

Question

I have this code:

public function linkify($status_text)
    {
      $status_text = preg_replace('/(https?:\/\/\S+)/','<a href="\1">\1</a>', $status_text);
      $status_text = preg_replace('/(^|\s)@(\w+)/','\1<a href="http://twitter.com/\2">@\2</a>',$status_text);
      $status_text = preg_replace('/(^|\s)#(\w+)/','\1#<a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23\2">\2</a>',$status_text);
      return $status_text;
    }  

and display feeds from twitter like this

        foreach($feed as $feed_item) {
            $html .= '<li>';
            $html .= '' . $this->linkify($feed_item->text) . '';
            $html .= '' . $this->relativedate((strtotime($feed_item->created_at))) . '';
            $html .= '</li>';
        }
        echo $html;

result of this code is

<li>Twitter Feed Text <a href="http://t.co/TnkNfxCdRu">http://t.co/TnkNfxCdRu</a></li>

if anyone can help me, how can I add text inside tag <a></a>. for example, to be exactly like this:

<li><a href="http://t.co/TnkNfxCdRu">Twitter Feed Text</a></li>

Thank you so much

Answer 1

Just change your first preg_replace to:

  $status_text = preg_replace('~(https?://(\S+))~','<a href="$1">$2</a>',$status_text);