Shortening URL after making it HTML

Swedie

Hey

I have a little simple script that make text URL's into HTML ones. But some URL's are just too long and I want the URL on the screen to be shortened down to 50 characters.

What is the script to do this?

This is my current script for turning URL's into HTML ones:

Please help

thanks

$data = ereg_replace("(([^{.<>[:space:]]+.)|([[:alpha:]]+://))+".} "[^{.<>[:space:]]+.[^{<>[:space:]]+",}} "<a href=\"http://\0\" target=\"_blank\">\0</a>", $data);
$data = ereg_replace("http://([[:alpha:]]+://)","\1",$data);

LordShryku

use [man]substr[/man] if you want to make it a stiff 50 characters. Doesn't seem like a good idea with a URL though....

Swedie

I know that you can use substr to shorten strings, but when you have to do it inside another code, it makes it all a bit more difficult.

I tried replacing \0 with " . substr("\0", 0, 50) . " but that didn't work very well.. it actually did nothing...

swr

Here's a snippet that will shorten a URL to the first 40 characters, a "...", and the last 10 characters:

if (strlen($url) > 50) {
    preg_match('/^(.{0,40}).*?(.{0,10})$/', $url, $matches);
    $url = $matches[1].'...'.$matches[2];
}

swr

Originally posted by Swedie
I know that you can use substr to shorten strings, but when you have to do it inside another code, it makes it all a bit more difficult.

Doing it all in an ereg_replace is not very readable.

Use ereg_replace (or whatever) only to make sure your URL is valid. Then build your HTML like this:

$url = $data;
// <- Insert the code snippet I posted before, here
$html = sprintf('<a href="%s" target="_blank">%s</a>', $data, $url);

That should do what you want.

Swedie

swr, thanks... but the content in the $data string is a big text that consist of not just the URL. So can't do a substr on $data cuz that would just shorten everything down to a total 50 characters. I need what is turned into an HTML URL shortened down. Get me?

swr

Then the first thing you should do is turn it into just a URL.

Assuming your original regular expression is what you want, do this:

$data = ereg_replace("(([^{.<>[:space:]]+.)|([[:alpha:]]+://))+".} "[^{.<>[:space:]]+.[^{<>[:space:]]+",}} "\0", $data);

followed by the code I posted.

You might be able to do it all as a single ereg_replace, but that is rather complex and (as you have discovered) may be inflexible. As a general rule, code ends up being more maintainable when you break it down into simple steps.

Moonglobe

it'd be pretty easy with PCRE's e modifier (evaluate), but the way posted (grab the URL and then substr it) should work just fine.... although there are easier ways.

Swedie

I guess I am slow....

but what I want is for example, this text:

Erbjudanden och Tips från Sporthoj.com. Beställ en egen Miniskylt
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Vill du ha plats. .... http://www.sporthoj.com/dsf/sdfas/32/df/sdf/2/3/42/d/s/fs/d/sdg/dsfg/ds.php ksadfl ksdölfas lsak ädalsälkdf lskfdä askflö kslfd aäslfdaäs löfsdfö sdlf lsdf

... that text have a stupid long URL, I want that URL shortened down because it is longer than 50 characters. I also want it HREF'd. So it would look like this:

<a href="http://www.sporthoj.com/dsf/sdfas/32/df/sdf/2/3/42/d/s/fs/d/sdg/dsfg/ds.php">[url]http://www.sporthoj.com/dsf/sdfas/...dsfg/ds.php[/url]</a>

Get me?

And since I don't know how to take two script and make one... please paste your complete code.

thanks =)

//EDIT: it seems like vBulletin has this built in their script... I've located a code that seem to do it, but it's wack and I don't understand it. (hence the piece of text I put in the code already is shortened)