Reformatting linebreaks into <p> tags, etc.

[bunner_bob]

I'm building a system where an administrator can input news articles into a form, which can then be read by any user accessing the site.

The typical administrator will not be technically savvy. I'd like them to be able to enter straight text with linebreak/carriage returns - let's say two of them between every paragraph - and have PHP process the text and add <p></p> tags around the paragraphs. In other words, wherever it finds a pair of carriage returns, insert </p><p> - plus of course a <p> at the start and a </p> at the end.

Do-able?

The two other things I'd like to be able to do are:

1. Replace "[e-mail]" with "<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a>" and

2. Replace "http://www.domain.com" with "<a href="http://www.domain.com">http://www.domain.com</a>"

I figure these are some kind of reg expression manipulations. Just thought somebody might have done all this already and can pass along some tips.

[jeremuck]

there's a function [man]nl2br[/man] that will replace the \n with <br>.

I found a site using google that is a bunch of user submitted regexp. I found it very useful. You can probably find all of what you need there.
Try a search for regexp on google.

[Kerry_Kobashi]

Since your users will not be technically savvy, why not try this....

Setup buttons that stream across the top of the input box.... take a look at the user interface being used here at PHPBuilder for entering in messages.

Kerry Kobashi
Kobashi Computing

[bunner_bob]

Thanks jeremuck - I figured I'd end up with something like that, though I may have to write something custom to convert, say \r\r to </p><p> (if indeed that's how carriage returns are coming through in these form fields).

I did a search on Google and didn't find any OBVIOUS site of user-submitted regexp - though o' course I got 167,000,000 matches. Can you give me a word or two to help me narrow it down?

[jeremuck]

AAAAHA!!!
It took me a while, but I found it:

http://regexlib.com/

I found it on dmoz