eregi_replace for link markup

I have content pulled from a database, and within that I have special tags -
such as [starttext] and [endtext]. I then replace these when the page is
pulled from the database with the correct HTML - in the above case <p> and
</p> respectively.

My problem is when it comes to links. I use the markup
[startlink=http://your.url]text[endlink], and the following PHP to replace
this with the <a> tags, but if the link has funny characters in it, or the
http:// is missed, sometimes the markup is not replaced. Is there a way
around this problem?

function uncodelinks($text) {
$text = eregi_replace("\[startlink=([-_./a-zA-Z0-9!&%#?,'=:~]+)]" .
"([-_./a-zA-Z0-9 !&%#?,'=:~]+)\[endlink]", "<a href=\"\\1\">\\2</a>",
$text);
return $text;
}

Thanks!

Marc

Marc wrote:

<snip>
> My problem is when it comes to links. I use the markup
> [startlink=http://your.url]text[endlink], and the following PHP to replace
> this with the <a> tags, but if the link has funny characters in it, or the
> http:// is missed, sometimes the markup is not replaced. Is there a way
> around this problem?
>
> function uncodelinks($text) {
> $text = eregi_replace("\[startlink=([-_./a-zA-Z0-9!&%#?,'=:~]+)]" .
> "([-_./a-zA-Z0-9 !&%#?,'=:~]+)\[endlink]", "<a href=\"\\1\">\\2</a>",
> $text);
> return $text;
> }
>

$text = preg_replace('#\[startlink\=([^\]]+)\]([^\[]+)\[endlink\]#im', '<a href="\1">\2</a>', $text);

> > My problem is when it comes to links. I use the markup
> > [startlink=http://your.url]text[endlink], and the following PHP to
replace
> > this with the <a> tags, but if the link has funny characters in it, or
the
> > http:// is missed, sometimes the markup is not replaced. Is there a way
> > around this problem?
> >
> > function uncodelinks($text) {
> > $text = eregi_replace("\[startlink=([-_./a-zA-Z0-9!&%#?,'=:~]+)]" .
> > "([-_./a-zA-Z0-9 !&%#?,'=:~]+)\[endlink]", "<a href=\"\\1\">\\2</a>",
> > $text);
> > return $text;
> > }
> >
>
> $text = preg_replace('#\[startlink\=([^\]]+)\]([^\[]+)\[endlink\]#im', '<a
href="\1">\2</a>', $text);

Thanks for that.

What are the #s and the im for?

Marc

Marc wrote:

>> > My problem is when it comes to links. I use the markup
>> > [startlink=http://your.url]text[endlink], and the following PHP to
> replace
>> > this with the <a> tags, but if the link has funny characters in it, or
> the
>> > http:// is missed, sometimes the markup is not replaced. Is there a
>> > way around this problem?
>> >
>> > function uncodelinks($text) {
>> > $text = eregi_replace("\[startlink=([-_./a-zA-Z0-9!&%#?,'=:~]+)]" .
>> > "([-_./a-zA-Z0-9 !&%#?,'=:~]+)\[endlink]", "<a href=\"\\1\">\\2</a>",
>> > $text);
>> > return $text;
>> > }
>> >
>>
>> $text = preg_replace('#\[startlink\=([^\]]+)\]([^\[]+)\[endlink\]#im',
>> '<a
> href="\1">\2</a>', $text);
>
> Thanks for that.
>
> What are the #s and the im for?
>
> Marc
You can use any delimiter you want - using # instead of / means that you can write
'#this/that/#' rather than '/this\/that\//'

the 'i' makes it case-insensitive, and the 'm' means it will match across