Extracting text

[jdcowan]

I have a description field containing multiple words in the text. I want to search for a possible (unknown) url in the text and, if found, extract the url text out to a variable. I know how to match the pattern, but not how to extract it out. The url's are different in each record so I'm not searching for a specific one. Any takers? Thanks.
johnc

[Anon]

I presume you're using either preg_match or ereg_match. Either way, the manual says what to do to extract matches. Wrap the bits of the regexp you want to keep in parentheses and add an extra variable to the end of the function call. The parenthesised bits of the match will end up in that extra variable.

[jdcowan]

Thanks for your suggestion. I solved it as follows. It may be more steps than I need, but at my level it' great that it works.

$pattern = "(http://)|(www).+";
$desc_text = $row_data->ldesc;
$array = split(' ', $row_data->ldesc);
for($i=0; $i < count($array); $i++){
if (eregi($pattern, $array[$i])){
$desc_url = "<A HREF=\"$array[$i]\">$array[$i]</A>";
$desc_text = eregi_replace($array[$i], $desc_url, $desc_text);
}//end if
} //end for
print "<DD>$desc_text<BR><BR>";