How can I change s.th. within a string?

Anon

I'm writing a Newsscript for the age of a friend. I promised him to include a function to easyly add Smileys or URLs etc. Now here 's the question: How can I look for them within the newstext and replace them with a Link or Image?

Example:

You enter
🙂

and get a little image with a smiley (so a html tag like <img src="URL OF THE SMILEY">

or you enter:

[LINK]http://webpage[/LINK]

and get:
<a href="http://webpage">http://webpage</a>

Anon

$body contains my message text:

$body = eregi_replace("😉", '<img src="images/wink.gif" alt="smiley" />', $body);
$body = eregi_replace(";(", '<img src="images/frown.gif" alt="smiley" />', $body);
$body = eregi_replace(";-)", '<img src="images/wink.gif" alt="smiley" />', $body);
$body = eregi_replace(";-(", '<img src="images/frown.gif" alt="smiley" />', $body);
$body = eregi_replace("🙂", '<img src="images/wink.gif" alt="smiley" />', $body);
$body = eregi_replace(":(", '<img src="images/frown.gif" alt="smiley" />', $body);

To replace images links or hyperlinks user adds in their text, simply use the htmlspecialchars() function.

To search for specific tekst, like [link]:

$body = ereg_replace("[LINK]([^{[LINK]]*)[LINK]",} "<a href=\"\1\"><\1</a>", $body);

Last one I'm not sure ;-) Perhaps this phpbuilder forum also escapes some text, so perhaps it doesn't make sense ;-)

Anon

Ah, there's one too many '<' in the a href part,
"<a href=\"\1\"><\1</a>"
should be:
"<a href=\"\1\">\1</a>"

Anon

You've saved much of my time... if I had to this on my own, I wouldn't have finished the script before the Page goes Online...

Once again Thanks

Anon

("[LINK]([^{[LINK]])[LINK]"}
should be
("[LINK]([^[LINK])[LINK]"

Anon

(\"\[LINK\]([^\[LINK\]*)\[LINK\]\"

Sure ? Hmm.. I didn\'t test that, I have to admit, but since you open with [ in ([^, shouldn\'t you also close?

Since you\'ve got unbalanced \"[\"\'s (4x[ and 3x])

But hey, who am I to judge a working concept ;-))

Glad to be of assistance!

Anon

Here are three variations of that script
First what you posted...
<?
$nnews = "http://www.yahoo.com";
$nnews = ereg_replace("[URL]([^{[URL]])[/URL]",} "<a href=\"\1\" target=\"_blank\">\1</a>", $nnews);
echo $nnews;
?>
Returns:
http://www.yahoo.com
Second how it works:
<?
$nnews = "http://www.yahoo.com";
$nnews = ereg_replace("[URL]([^[URL])[/URL]", "<a href=\"\1\" target=\"_blank\">\1</a>", $nnews);
echo $nnews;
?>
Returns:
<a href="http://www.yahoo.com" target="_blank">http://www.yahoo.com</a>
And third with balanced "["s and "]"s:
<?
$nnews = "http://www.yahoo.com";
$nnews = ereg_replace("[URL](^{[URL]*)[/URL]",} "<a href=\"\1\" target=\"_blank\">\1</a>", $nnews);
echo $nnews;
?>
Returns:
http://www.yahoo.com

So if anybody could explain why it just works with the one that has one "[" more than "]"'s...

Anon

I just uploaded the script, to see whether there's a bug in my local php-parser or if that is on my webpage, too...
Here you can see it yourself:

http://goldeneye.gnw.de/newnews/URLtest.php3

Anon

Well... at least it works in the second try...

Anyway, you don't really need you can also use [url][url] or, {url} for that matter.

The ereg function (btw. better to use eregi_replace for case-insensitive search) searches for the first occurence, and ends with the next occurence of what you are looking for.

I use the same methods on my (beta) discussion forum. Enables users to use smileys, bold, italic etc. etc.