placeholder php question

JP Stones posted this at 10:06 — 25th May 2006.

Joined: Nov 1998

Hi guys,

I have a question which goes beyond was a str_replace can do.

I have a form that users populate with txt and php then formats it.

i want to add functionality so that if they type

[click here:http://www.website.com]

php will turn that into a normal html link <a href="http://www.website.com">click here</a>

anyone know how i can do this?

Thanks a lot

cdwhalley.com posted this at 12:21 — 25th May 2006.

He has: 3 posts

Joined: Apr 2006

I think this should do it, although I haven't tested it.

<?php
$input_string = \"[click here:http://www.website.com]\";//this is from the form
$first_bracket = strpos($input_string, \"[\") + 1;//get the position of the first bracket and go 1 past it
$last_bracket = strrpos($input_string, \"]\");//get the position of the last bracket
$substr_length = $last_bracket - $first_bracket;//get the length of between the brackets
$input_string = substr($input_string, $first_bracket, $substr_length);//cut out the inside of the brackets
list($link_text, $link_url) = explode(\":\", $input_string);//get the data from either side of the :
echo \"<a href=\\"\".$link_url.\"\\">\".$link_text.\"</a>\";//output
?>

This would only work if there was just 1 of these links in the $input_string. It would need to be more complex if there was more than 1.

EDIT: preg_replace would probably be more appropriate, but my regex isn't up to that standard

www.cdwhalley.com

JP Stones posted this at 09:12 — 26th May 2006.

They have: 2,390 posts

Joined: Nov 1998

thanks

it does need to happen more than once

and i think your right i looked at preg replace and it seems that will work. can anyone confirm that preg replace will do the job before i spend some time on it?

thanks