array nesting error???

greg890

The purpose of the code is to isolate the single words that appear before commas, and create hyperlinks out of them. This is probably a sloppy way of doing it. But it seems to be pretty close. Can you see where I'm wrong?

$string = "I like football, but I also like baseball, basketball and swimming.";   

preg_match_all('/(\w+),/m', $string, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);  

$s = 0; 
foreach($matches as $name)  

{ 
array($name) ; 
$name = str_replace(",","",$name); 
$new_string = str_replace($name[$s], "<a href=\"http://www.domain.com/$name[$s]\">$name[$s]</a>", "$string"); 
echo"<pre>"; 
print_r($name); 
echo"</pre>"; 
$s++; 
} 
echo ("<br>$new_string");

The output is:

Array
(
    [0] => football
    [1] => football
)

Array
(
    [0] => baseball
    [1] => baseball
)


I like football, but I also like [URL=http://www.domain.com/baseball]baseball[/URL], basketball and swimming.

I want it to hyperlink football, too.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Greg

zabmilenko

What about this?

$words = array(
	'football',
	'baseball',
	'basketball',
	'swimming'
);

$string = "I like football, but I also like baseball, basketball and swimming.";


foreach($words as $word)  

{	
	$string = str_replace($word, "<a href=\"http://www.domain.com/$word\">$word</a>", $string);
}

echo ("<br>$string");

greg890

Thanks. That would work if I knew what words would be used in advance. But it's based off of user input.

The only way for me to pick out these words is to grab those that appear directy before a comma.

Any other ideas?

NogDog

$newString = preg_replace
(
   '/\b(\S*),/',
   "<a href='http://www.domain.com/$1'>$1</a>,",
   $string
);

greg890

Thanks NogDog,

That did it. I'd really like to understand it. That would be even better.

If you (or anyone) doesn't mind taking the time, could you explain to me:

/\b(\S*),/

and also the $1 variable?

Thanks again. Youre solution is greatly appreciated!

Greg

NogDog

/         start of regex
\b        word boundary assertion
(         start of subpattern
\S        any non-whitespace character
*         0-n occurences of the preceding character (\S)
)         end of subpattern
,         comma
/         end of regex

$1 = first subpattern, which will be the value of "\S*"

See http://www.php.net/manual/en/reference.pcre.pattern.syntax.php for more info.

greg890

Thanks a lot! That is a great help!

Greg