Weird results with str_replace()

Anon

I am using str_replace().

In the source string I have a url.

I pull this string from the database
$Str = <a href="<<WEBLINK>>">Click Here</a>

Then I do a
$Str = str_replace( '<<WEBLINK>>', $weblink, $Str );

$weblink is also pulled from the database.

What happens is, if $weblink is a valid url and contains the http:// at the front, then everything works as expected. BUT if it is not valid or does not contain the http:// it acts like this is a relative url and prepends my websites address to the front.

Ex. If $weblink = "www.phpbuilder.com" then the resulting string would be
"http://www.mysite.com/www.phpbuilder.com"

Anybody know why it does this???? I can work around it by making sure that the url's are complete and correct in the db, but it would be nice to still be able to handle a url without the http:// since these are user input urls;

Thanks for any help

Anon

You're saying

$weblink='www.phpbuilder.com';
$Str='<a href="<<WEBLINK>>">Click Here</a>';
$Str=str_replace('<<WEBLINK>>',$weblink,$Str);

and $Str ends up with

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/www.phpbuilder.com>Click Here</a>

That is bizarre. Can we see some more code?

Anon

Yep,

That is exactly what is happening. I thought it strange also.

The exact function that I use is below still with the debug echo statements. Everything is how it should be from the echos so the only place I can figure that is coming from is the str_replace() call.

$msgbody is a string and memrow is a db row obtained from mysql_fetch_object().

function prepareMsg( $msgbody, $memrow )
{
$weblink = "";
$prepStr = "";

echo "In prepareMsg ";

$prepStr = str_replace( '<<MFNAME>>', $memrow->fname, $msgbody );

$prepStr = str_replace( '<<MLNAME>>', $memrow->lname, $prepStr );

$prepStr = str_replace( '<<MPHONE>>', $memrow->phone, $prepStr );

$prepStr = str_replace( '<<MEMAIL>>', $memrow->email, $prepStr );

echo "memrowurl = " . $memrow->url . " ";
if ( strlen( $memrow->url ) == 0 )
{
$weblink = "http://www.mysite.com/welcome.html?uid=$memrow->username";
echo "strlen(memrow) = 0 : weblink = " . $weblink . " ";
}
else
{
$weblink = $memrow->url;
echo "strlen(memrow) > 0 ) : weblink = " . $weblink . " ";
}

$prepStr = str_replace( '<<WEBLINK>>', $weblink, $prepStr );
echo "prepstr = " . $prepStr . " ";

return $prepStr;
}

In every case $weblink is correct but the echo of $prepStr has the incorrect url. Like I said, this only happens if the $weblink is invalid or does not have the http:// with it. The other instance I got it was when $weblink = 'http;//...' notice the semi-colon instead of colon.

Thanks,

Greg

Anon

No, I don't think that's what's happening. I think the link tag is:

<a href="www.phpbuilder.com>Click Here</a>

But Greg is saying that it becomes http://www.mysite.com/www.phpbuilder.com bcause he's looking at the status bar and the status bar thinks the URL is relative so it appends http://www.mysite.com/ to it.

To fix this, Greg, you'll need to see if $weblink contains "://", if it doesn't, then append "http://". The reason I say "://" instead of "http://", is because some links can be ftp:// or other protocols, so it's not safe to test for http:// (unless, of course, you know before hand that ALL links will be HTTP).

Diego

Anon

Oh, that could be it. I will actually look at the "document source" instead of the status window to see if that is what is happening ( I would be money it is), but that makes much more sense than str_replace() putting it in there.

They should always be http:// so I will have to see if I want to try and force this.

Thanks for the help, at least now I don't feel like I am going crazy.

Greg