using preg replace to format urls

Question

I have a regex that takes a string like a bbcode and transforms it to a html link. It work fine. but, I want to make it detect the type of the link (internal/external) to decide whether to strictly use the absolute (external) url like http://extsite.com/category/keyword/ or use the part of the internal url like category/keyword/ and append it to a predefined url like $url . category/keyword/

The regex is as follows:

preg_replace('/\[([^\]]+)\]\[([^\]"]+)\]/i', '<a href="$2">$1</a>', $text)

Any suggestion will be very appreciated.

how do you define an internal link? is it any link that doesn't start with http:// ? — Aziz
– Aziz, Commented Apr 28, 2012 at 9:49

Aziz · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-28 10:11:26Z

1

Based on your comment, I will assume that any link that starts with http:// (or any similar protocol, e.g. ftp://) is an absolute link. Any other link will be considered a relative link (and will be prefixed by $url)

// replace absolute links
$text = preg replace ('/\[([^\]]+)\]\[([A-Za-z]+:\/\/[^\]"]+)\]/i',
                      '<a href="$2">$1</a>', $text )


// replace all remaining (relative) links
// $url must have a tailing slash '/'
$text = preg replace ('/\[([^\]]+)\]\[([^\]"]+)\]/i',
                      '<a href="'.$url.'$2">$1</a>', $text )

answered Apr 28, 2012 at 10:11

Aziz

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3 Comments

medk Over a year ago

ok I have already done it but with https? instead of [A-Za-z]+ but your example seems to be better as mine doesn't support protocols other than http and https. thanks.

Madara's Ghost Over a year ago

How about the // relative protocol? It still counts as an external link //google.com is a valid external URL.

Aziz Over a year ago

@Truth: the regexp can be modified as such. As I said, it depends on the definition of "external" and "internal" links

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