Parsing URLs

[ScubaKing22]

I have a question regarding the parsing of URLs if thats the right term. What I mean is that if someone were to type in on my site http://www.site.com/ it would turn it into a <a href="http://www.site.com">http://www.site.com</a> or something. I read about ereg_replace() on php.net but I don't understand it. Can anyone point me in the right direction or give some code w/explanations? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[shawon22]

http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/63/0.php

http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/52/0.php

[ScubaKing22]

Thanks a whole lot that is exactly what I was looking for. 🙂

[seby]

Here are what mines look like:

$string = preg_replace("/\[url\](.*?)\[\/url\]/si", "<a href=http://\\1 target=_blank>[url]http://\\1[/url]</a>", $string);
$string = preg_replace("/\[url=(.*?)\](.*?)\[\/url\]/si", "<a href=\\1 target=_blank>\\2</a>", $string);

the first one lets you do:
[url ]http://mysite.com[/url ]

which is like doing: <a href="http://mysite.com">http://mysite.com</a>

the next one allows you to specify a name for the url:

[ url=http://mysite.com]Click here[/url ]

same as:
<a href="http://mysite.com">Click here</a>