regular expressions and PHP

[rahul_raj77]

Hi friends,

Can some one tell me how to do this.

convert the following string1 to string2.

string1=" welcome to rahul raj's website

please select from the following options
email: [e-mail]";

string2=" welcome to rahul raj's website

please select from the following options
email: <a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a>";

please notice that I need to restore the string format, i mean the newlines tabs etc..should not be disturbed.

Thanx for your help
Rahul

[Shovelnose]

Hi Rahul

The following regexp's will convert any url or email found in the variable message string into url's...

$messagestring = preg_replace("/\b((http(s?):\/\/)|(www\.))([\w\.]+)([\/\w+\.]+)\b/i", "<a href=\"http$3://$4$5$6\" target=\"_blank\">$2$4$5$6</a>", $messagestring);

$messagestring = preg_replace("/([\w\.]+)(@)([\w\.]+)/i", "<a href=\"mailto:$0\">$0</a>", $messagestring);

[rahul_raj77]

Hi Richard
I used the expression you gave for the following string,

string1=" welcome to rahul raj's website

please select from the following options
email: [e-mail]";

$string1= preg_replace("/([w.]+)(@)([w.]+)/i", "<a href=\"mailto:$0\">$0</a>", $string1);

echo($string1);

It displays as follows
welcome to rahul raj's website please select from the following options email:
[e-mail]

It still doesn't add a link to email...

can you please check this again..
If possible can you tell me wat does "/([w.]+)(@)([w.]+)/i", mean,
because if I understand it well may be I can solve my problem

Thanks for your help and time.
Rahlu

[Shovelnose]

Hi Rahlu

To break this regexps down you should probably have a look at this first http://www.php.net/manual/sv/function.preg-replace.php which explains in full detail.

Essentially it is looking for a pattern followed by a . [w.] that exists one or more times + followed by the @ sign followed by a pattern and a . [w.] one or more times +.

When a pattern is found that conforms to the above it adds the href mailto anchors around the email address.

This definatly works as does your example on the post. The problem may be the browser, I have the feeling the mailto function only works in IE - you may need to check this...

Hope that helps

[rahul_raj77]

Hi,
I checked the code in IE6 still it doesnt work.

if possible can you please check the code.

Thanks
Rahul.

[xblue]

php is server side. this means, either it is replacing something or it doesn't, but that happens before it sends the stuff to the browser.

'w' in a pattern means the character w.
'\w' means a "word character" which is more likely what you need.
most probably they were in Richard's original example, the forum sometimes looses them.