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Find URLs in Text, Make Links

<?php

// The Regular Expression filter
$reg_exUrl = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/";

// The Text you want to filter for urls
$text = "The text you want to filter goes here. http://google.com";

// Check if there is a url in the text
if(preg_match($reg_exUrl, $text, $url)) {

       // make the urls hyper links
       echo preg_replace($reg_exUrl, "<a href="{$url[0]}">{$url[0]}</a> ", $text);

} else {

       // if no urls in the text just return the text
       echo $text;

}
?>

The basic function of this is to find any URLs in the block of text and turn them into hyperlinks. It will only find URLs if they are properly formatted, meaning they have a http, https, ftp or ftps.

Check out the comments below for more solutions.

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  1. David Moreen

    I want to thank you from the bottom of my little heart, I have been in search for this exact script for the past 6 months! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I would like to point out however that there was error but nothing I could not fix :D Assid from your code this is the code that I got to work for myself.

    <?php
// The Regular Expression filter
$reg_exUrl = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/";

// The Text you want to filter for urls
$text = "The text you want to filter goes here. http://google.com";

// Check if there is a url in the text
if(preg_match($reg_exUrl, $text, $url)) {

       // make the urls hyper links
       echo preg_replace($reg_exUrl, '<a href="'.$url[0].'" rel="nofollow">'.$url[0].'</a>', $text);

} else {

       // if no urls in the text just return the text
       echo $text;

}
?>

    Again thank you very much!

    Reply ↓
  2. Dan Jasnowski

    This doesn’t work for 2 or more URLs.

    Reply ↓
  3. Vindesh Mohariya

    Find the Image URL using preg_match() syntax or something similar to extract JPG or PNG or GIF URLs from a mixed text and put them in an array or at last store the first url.

    maybe some syntax which searchs for strings that are beginning with http and ending with jpg/png/gif..

    i believe it can be done with preg_match()

    Note: the text can be like that : $string =blablablabla”http://www.xxx.com/xxx.jpg”blablablabla

    $matches = array();
    preg_match_all(‘!http://.+\.(?:jpe?g|png|gif)!Ui’ , $string , $matches);

    Reply ↓
  4. Dev

    Thanks,

    It works like charm!

    Reply ↓
  5. Wolandca
    public function formatUrlsInText($text){
            $reg_exUrl = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/";
            preg_match_all($reg_exUrl, $text, $matches);
            $usedPatterns = array();
            foreach($matches[0] as $pattern){
                if(!array_key_exists($pattern, $usedPatterns)){
                    $usedPatterns[$pattern]=true;
                    $text = str_replace  ($pattern, "<a href="{$pattern}" rel="nofollow">{$pattern}</a> ", $text);
                }
            }
            return $text;
}
    Reply ↓
  6. amitai

    This is my version based on previous examples… hope this helps someone trying to force links on www without the http…

    simply call the function as follows:

    $body = txt2link($body);

    function txt2link($text){
	// force http: on www.
 	$text = ereg_replace( "www\.", "http://www.", $text );
	// eliminate duplicates after force
  	$text = ereg_replace( "http://http://www\.", "http://www.", $text );
  	$text = ereg_replace( "https://http://www\.", "https://www.", $text );

	// The Regular Expression filter
	$reg_exUrl = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/";
	// Check if there is a url in the text
	if(preg_match($reg_exUrl, $text, $url)) {
		   // make the urls hyper links
		   $text = preg_replace($reg_exUrl, '<a href="'.$url[0].'" rel="nofollow">'.$url[0].'</a>', $text);
	}    // if no urls in the text just return the text
		   return ($text);
}
    Reply ↓
  7. James

    Cases that this won’t catch:
    http://localhost/test
    http://1.2.3.4/test

    Also if you feed in
    “http://www.google.co.uk/page is on the website http://www.google.co.uk/”
    you will get some very mangled output, as when you search for “http://www.google.co.uk/” you will also match the text in the middle of the existing link for “http://www.google.co.uk/page”

    Reply ↓
  8. goyal

    your site is amazing. no bull shit. all good stuff. pls include my email id in ur permanent mailing list.

    Reply ↓
  9. James

    can that original script for finding urls be modifed to look for links ending with an .mp3 exstension?

    Reply ↓
  10. DanJenkins

    Thanks, working a charm!

    Reply ↓
  11. Miguel Mdz

    Great post. Just what I was looking for. I’m going to use it on my site.

    Thanks.

    Reply ↓
  12. Seebz

    Another equivalent function that make better results : http://code.seebz.net/p/autolink-php/

    There is the same in javascript : http://code.seebz.net/p/autolink-js/

    Reply ↓
  13. braz

    The domain name can be longer then 3 characters, e.g. http://cxid.info/

    Reply ↓
  14. omprakash

    Great trick for developing the regular expression.

    Reply ↓
  15. Petar Marinov

    I’ve changed it a little bit, cause it won’t work for more than one url. Besides THANK YOU very much for the help.

    public static function url_to_link($text) {
            // The Regular Expression filter
            $reg_exUrl = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/";
            // Check if there is a url in the text
            if (preg_match_all($reg_exUrl, $text, $url)) {
                // make the urls hyper links
                foreach($url[0] as $v){
                    //current position of the searached url
                    $curpos = strpos($text,' '.$v)+1;
                    //delete the url
                    $text = substr_replace($text,'', $curpos, strlen($v));
                    //insert the link
                    $text = substr_replace($text,''.$v.'', $curpos ,0);
                }
                return $text;
            }
            else {
                // if no urls in the text just return the text
                return $text;
            }
        }
    Reply ↓
  16. milad

    i really liked this preg :D

    Reply ↓
  17. Shop

    You Have some useful ideas! Maybe I ought to ponder trying this by my self. Cheers

    Reply ↓

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