Regular Expression Help

rvrabel

I want to create a regular expression that will find a certain text, and put <abbr></abbr> tag around it.

The hard part is, i want it to NOT do it to text that is inside of a link tag here is an example:

< a href="wsu.php" title="WSU">WSU</a>

i want to do this

< a href="wsu.php" title="WSU"><abbr title="Wayne State University">WSU</abbr></a>

Any input would be appreciated, thank you!

etully

$x = "< a href=\"WSU.php\" title=\"WSU\">WSU</a>";
$y = preg_replace("/([^{<])WSU([^>])/",'$1<abbr} title="Wayne State University">WSU</abbr>$2',$x);
print "$y";

rvrabel

Thanks a lot! Works great!

xblue

I think there may be one tiniest drawback with this (not to offend anyone; it may well be sufficient for your purposes):

If the keyword repeats within the tag, e.g.

$x = "< a href=\"WSU.php\" title=\"WSU\">WSU other text WSU WSU</a>";

all occurences except the last one are skipped.

Here is a different approach
(and the explanation how to make it work with html snipplets rather than complete wellformed html pages
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10315712)

etully

Heh. No offense taken. I tested my code on a few strings but I didn't think to test that possibility. Good catch.