convert plain text URLs to HTML hyperlinks in PHP
Question
Is there anyway to convert plain text URLs to HTML hyperlinks in PHP? I need to convert URLs of following type:
http://example.com
http://example.org
http://example.gov/
http://example.com?q=sometext&opt=thisandthat
http://example.com#path
http://example.com?q=querypath#path
http://example.com/somepath/index.html
https://example.com/
https://example.org/
https://example.gov/
https://example.com?q=sometext&opt=thisandthat
https://example.com#path
https://example.com?q=querypath#path
https://example.com/somepath/index.html
http://www.example.com/
http://www.example.org/
http://www.example.gov/
http://www.example.com?q=sometext&opt=thisandthat
http://www.example.com#path
http://www.example.com?q=querypath#path
http://www.example.com/somepath/index.html
https://www.example.com/
https://www.example.org/
https://www.example.gov/
https://www.example.com?q=sometext&opt=thisandthat
https://www.example.com#path
https://www.example.com?q=querypath#path
https://www.example.com/somepath/index.html
www.example.com/
www.example.org/
www.example.gov/
www.example.com?q=sometext&opt=thisandthat
www.example.com/#path
www.example.com?q=querypath#path
www.example.com/somepath/index.html
example.com/
example.org/
example.gov/
example.com?q=sometext&opt=thisandthat
example.com/#path
example.com?q=querypath#path
example.com/somepath/index.html
Solution
How about running them through a regular expression like the following used to re-activate Twitter links -
OTHER TIPS
If you just need to convert a single URL, it's quite easy:
function makeLink($url)
{
return '<a href="' . htmlspecialchars($url) . '">' . htmlspecialchars($url) . '</a>';
}
For URLs appearing in a larger text block, e.g. user comments, see this question:
Try this function. this will make link if text start with http or www. example.com will not work.
function linkable($text = ''){
$text = preg_replace("/\s+/", ' ', str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), ' ', $text));
$data = '';
foreach( explode(' ', $text) as $str){
if (preg_match('#^http?#i', trim($str)) || preg_match('#^www.?#i', trim($str))) {
$data .= '<a href="'.$str.'">'.$str.'</a> ';
} else {`enter code here`
$data .= $str .' ';
}
}
return trim($data);
}
Er, wrap them in an anchor tag?
function linkify($url) {
return '<a href="' . $url . '">' . $url . '</a>';
}
This is what I use to do the same thing on a small forum I made. Generally I run the whole comment through it like echo makeLinks($forumpost['comment']);
function makeLinks($str) {
return preg_replace('/(https?):\/\/([A-Za-z0-9\._\-\/\?=&;%,]+)/i', '<a href="$1://$2" target="_blank">$1://$2</a>', $str);
}
Here is how I did it (with test cases included):
/**
* @see Inspired by https://css-tricks.com/snippets/php/find-urls-in-text-make-links/ and Example 1 of http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace-callback.php
*
* @param string $text
* @return string
*/
public static function getTextWithLinksEnabled($text) {
$regex = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/";
return preg_replace_callback($regex, function ($matches) {
$fullMatch = $matches[0];
return "<a href='" . $fullMatch . "'>" . $fullMatch . "</a>";
}, $text);
}
Tests:
public function testGetTextWithLinksEnabled() {
$this->assertEquals('a@b.com', StrT::getTextWithLinksEnabled('a@b.com'));//no links
$this->assertEquals('just plain text', StrT::getTextWithLinksEnabled('just plain text'));//no links
$this->assertEquals("here is a link <a href='https://stackoverflow.com/'>https://stackoverflow.com/</a> right here", StrT::getTextWithLinksEnabled('here is a link https://stackoverflow.com/ right here'));//one link
$this->assertEquals("here is a link <a href='https://stackoverflow.com/'>https://stackoverflow.com/</a> right here and another: <a href='https://css-tricks.com/snippets/php/find-urls-in-text-make-links/'>https://css-tricks.com/snippets/php/find-urls-in-text-make-links/</a>", StrT::getTextWithLinksEnabled('here is a link https://stackoverflow.com/ right here and another: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/php/find-urls-in-text-make-links/'));//2 links
}
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