[RESOLVED] Shortening URL

intenz

Hello, I'm trying to auto-shorten long URLs, just like vBulletin does it.

I have this code...

$string = preg_replace( '#\[url\](.+?)\[/url\]#i', '<a href="\\1" class="content-link">\\1</a>', $string );

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about changing...

http:/ehsanakhgari.org/mozilla/downloadday/stats/pledge-ranking-by-country-population?sort=asc&order=Rank

Into...

http:/ehsanakhgari.org/mozilla/down...asc&order=Rank

Anyone who knows how vBulletin does this?

leatherback

So erh.. And your question is...??

leatherback

I suppose that they would grab the URL, do a strlen() on it, if it is longer than a specified max, you chop the first n characters, add ... and take the last few characters to it using e.g. [man]substr[/man] and place it back into the link. Instead of using preg_replace, you probably want to use preg_match to et the URL in a var.

intenz

I've tried to do this, but I can't quite figure it out. Could you help me a little?

bradgrafelman

Actually, preg_replace() might be exactly what you want. What you might want to do, however, is add the 'e' modifier onto your pattern so that you can create your own function to do exactly what leatherback is suggesting.

Example:

$string = preg_replace( '#\[url\](.+?)\[/url\]#ie', 'createURL("\\1")', $string );

All you'd have to do is define the createURL() to do what leatherback described: check the length of the URL and, if it exceeds n characters, shorten the displayed portion of the URL.

Inside the function, you'd want to return the newly generated HTML string.

leatherback

bradgrafelman wrote:
Actually, preg_replace() might be exactly what you want. What you might want to do, however, is add the 'e' modifier onto your pattern so that you can create your own function to do exactly what leatherback is suggesting.

Nice!
It is a good day already; checkpoint 1 of the list done: learn something new today!

Weedpacket

Moreso; since all the "replacement string" contains is a function call, that step can be skipped with

$string = preg_replace_callback( '#\[url\](.+?)\[/url\]#i', 'createURL', $string );

On the plus side, there's no risk of the eval'd string being invalid due to the wrong thing being substituted (not that there's much chance of that, here); the down side is that now the argument passed to the createURL() function is an entire array containing the entire matched string and all the backreferences.

intenz

I think I solved it...

<?php
function createURL( $aUrl )
{
	$url = $aUrl[1];
	if( substr( $url, -1 ) == '/' )
		$url = substr( $url, 0, -1 );

if( strlen( $url ) > 50 )
{
	$array_url = parse_url( $url );

	if( substr_count( $array_url['path'], '/' ) > 1 )
	{
		$array_url['file'] = substr( $array_url['path'], strrpos( $array_url['path'], '/' ) + 1 );
		$array_url['path'] = substr( $array_url['path'], 0, strrpos( $array_url['path'], '/' ) + 1 );
		$new_url = str_replace( $array_url['path'], '/.../', $url );
	}
	else
		$new_url = str_replace( $array_url['path'], substr( $array_url['path'], 0, ( strlen( $array_url['path'] ) >= 6 ) ? 6 : 1 ) . '...', $url );
}

return '<a href="' . $url . '">' . $new_url . '</a>';
}

# Test it...
$foo = '[url]http://ehsanakhgari.org/mozilla/downloadday/stats/pledge-ranking-by-country-population.php?sort=asc&order=Rank[/url]<br />
[url]http://mbl.is/mm/sport/formula/2008/06/18/mercedes_minnist_fyrsta_sigursins_med_aldargomlum_b/[/url]<br />
[url]http://www.somethingawful.is/very-long-****ing-filename-which-is-so-cool-je.html#foo[/url]<br />
[url]http://members.aol.com/rynocub/this.is.a.very.long.url/this.very.long.url.was.created.by/the.rynocub.home.page/which.was.created.by/ben.tolsky/and.radioactive.chicken/which.is.a.ben.tolsky.company/this.url.is.the.longest.url.made.by/ben.tolsky/finally.this.is.over.htm[/url]<br />
[url]http://verylongurl.com/news-technology-slashdot-geek-tech-daily-web-blog-web2.0.html[/url]<br />
[url]http://verylongurl.com/programming-news-web-reddit-social-blog-web2.0-lisp-tutorial.html[/url]<br />
[url]http://verylongurl.com/finance-money-web2.0-wesabe-api-banking-financial-rest-budget.html[/url]<br />';

$string = preg_replace_callback( '#\[url\](.+?)\[/url\]#i', 'createURL', $foo );

echo $string;
?>

Works like a charm.