regular expression of links.

hello,
I am building a system that allows users to enter text.
something like a guestbook.

I would like to do that if the user write a link that starts with www in the text it will turn the link into a clickable link that means it will add the <a href=""></a> tag to it.

is there any regular expression that can help me with such thing?
thanks in advanced for any help.

Yair

This expression should do the same as the link finder of vBulletin.

"(www\.[^\w]+)|(http://[^\w]+)"

You need to add the http:// if it isn't already there, else the link is interpreted as relative.

I will now try to find a place which will help me to understand this regular expression.

thanks again

Yair

Err... ask me? ;)

The expression matches one of two patterns. The first pattern is
(www\.[^\w]+)
Which means "www." followed by 1 or more non-whitespace characters. Captured.

The second pattern is
(http://[^\w]+)
Which mean "http://" followed by 1 or more non-whitespace characters. Captured.

I didnt wanted to bother you with lazyness questions ...

:)

thank you
Yair

Everyone else does...

CornedBee, I got an error (Unknown modifier '|') when I tried that. :confused:

I've always used:

Code:

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$text = preg_replace('/(?<!<a href=\")((http|ftp)+(s)?:\/\/[^<>\s]+)/i', '<a href="\\0">\\0</a>', $text);

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'tis weird, | is one of the most basic features of regular expressions.

Quote:

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Originally posted by CornedBee
'tis weird, | is one of the most basic features of regular expressions.

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Does the expression work for you?

I tried changing it to:

Code:

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"((www\.[^\w]+)|(http://[^\w]+))"

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Thinking that might help. It gets rid of the error, but doesn't do anything to the text.

Haven't tried. I just think it's weird that I get such a simple expression wrong ;)