Replace URLs in text with HTML links

You guyz are talking way to advance and complex stuff which is good for some situation, but mostly we need a simple careless solution. How about simply this?

preg_replace('/(http[s]{0,1}\:\/\/\S{4,})\s{0,}/ims', '<a href="$1" target="_blank">$1</a> ', $text_msg);

Just try it and let me know what crazy url it doesnt satisfy.

Here is something i found that is tried and tested

function make_links_blank($text)
{
  return  preg_replace(
     array(
       '/(?(?=<a[^>]*>.+<\/a>)
             (?:<a[^>]*>.+<\/a>)
             |
             ([^="\']?)((?:https?|ftp|bf2|):\/\/[^<> \n\r]+)
         )/iex',
       '/<a([^>]*)target="?[^"\']+"?/i',
       '/<a([^>]+)>/i',
       '/(^|\s)(www.[^<> \n\r]+)/iex',
       '/(([_A-Za-z0-9-]+)(\\.[_A-Za-z0-9-]+)*@([A-Za-z0-9-]+)
       (\\.[A-Za-z0-9-]+)*)/iex'
       ),
     array(
       "stripslashes((strlen('\\2')>0?'\\1<a href=\"\\2\">\\2</a>\\3':'\\0'))",
       '<a\\1',
       '<a\\1 target="_blank">',
       "stripslashes((strlen('\\2')>0?'\\1<a href=\"http://\\2\">\\2</a>\\3':'\\0'))",
       "stripslashes((strlen('\\2')>0?'<a href=\"mailto:\\0\">\\0</a>':'\\0'))"
       ),
       $text
   );
}

It works for me. And it works for emails and URL's, Sorry to answer my own question. :(

But this one is the only that works

Here is the link where i found it : http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/PHP/Q_21878567.html

Sry in advance for it being a experts-exchange.

I've been using this function, it works for me

function AutoLinkUrls($str,$popup = FALSE){
    if (preg_match_all("#(^|\s|\()((http(s?)://)|(www\.))(\w+[^\s\)\<]+)#i", $str, $matches)){
        $pop = ($popup == TRUE) ? " target=\"_blank\" " : "";
        for ($i = 0; $i < count($matches['0']); $i++){
            $period = '';
            if (preg_match("|\.$|", $matches['6'][$i])){
                $period = '.';
                $matches['6'][$i] = substr($matches['6'][$i], 0, -1);
            }
            $str = str_replace($matches['0'][$i],
                    $matches['1'][$i].'<a href="http'.
                    $matches['4'][$i].'://'.
                    $matches['5'][$i].
                    $matches['6'][$i].'"'.$pop.'>http'.
                    $matches['4'][$i].'://'.
                    $matches['5'][$i].
                    $matches['6'][$i].'</a>'.
                    $period, $str);
        }//end for
    }//end if
    return $str;
}//end AutoLinkUrls

All credits goes to - http://snipplr.com/view/68586/

Enjoy!

Here is the code using Regular Expressions in function

<?php
//Function definations
function MakeUrls($str)
{
$find=array('`((?:https?|ftp)://\S+[[:alnum:]]/?)`si','`((?<!//)(www\.\S+[[:alnum:]]/?))`si');

$replace=array('<a href="$1" target="_blank">$1</a>', '<a href="http://$1" target="_blank">$1</a>');

return preg_replace($find,$replace,$str);
}
//Function testing
$str="www.cloudlibz.com";
$str=MakeUrls($str);
echo $str;
?>

This RegEx should match any link except for these new 3+ character toplevel domains...

{
  \\b
  # Match the leading part (proto://hostname, or just hostname)
  (
    # http://, or https:// leading part
    (https?)://[-\\w]+(\\.\\w[-\\w]*)+
  |
    # or, try to find a hostname with more specific sub-expression
    (?i: [a-z0-9] (?:[-a-z0-9]*[a-z0-9])? \\. )+ # sub domains
    # Now ending .com, etc. For these, require lowercase
    (?-i: com\\b
        | edu\\b
        | biz\\b
        | gov\\b
        | in(?:t|fo)\\b # .int or .info
        | mil\\b
        | net\\b
        | org\\b
        | [a-z][a-z]\\.[a-z][a-z]\\b # two-letter country code
    )
  )

  # Allow an optional port number
  ( : \\d+ )?

  # The rest of the URL is optional, and begins with /
  (
    /
    # The rest are heuristics for what seems to work well
    [^.!,?;"\\'()\[\]\{\}\s\x7F-\\xFF]*
    (
      [.!,?]+ [^.!,?;"\\'()\\[\\]\{\\}\s\\x7F-\\xFF]+
    )*
  )?
}ix

It's not written by me, I'm not quite sure where I got it from, sorry that I can give no credit...

this should get you email addresses:

$string = "bah bah [email protected] foo";
$match = preg_match('/[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+(?:\.[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+)*\@[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+(?:\.[^\x00-\x20()<>@,;:\\".[\]\x7f-\xff]+)+/', $string, $array);
print_r($array);

// outputs:
Array
(
    [0] => [email protected]
)

I know this answer has been accepted and that this question is quite old, but it can be useful for other people looking for other implementations.

This is a modified version of the code posted by: Angel.King.47 on July 27,09:

$text = preg_replace(
 array(
   '/(^|\s|>)(www.[^<> \n\r]+)/iex',
   '/(^|\s|>)([_A-Za-z0-9-]+(\\.[A-Za-z]{2,3})?\\.[A-Za-z]{2,4}\\/[^<> \n\r]+)/iex',
   '/(?(?=<a[^>]*>.+<\/a>)(?:<a[^>]*>.+<\/a>)|([^="\']?)((?:https?):\/\/([^<> \n\r]+)))/iex'
 ),  
 array(
   "stripslashes((strlen('\\2')>0?'\\1<a href=\"http://\\2\" target=\"_blank\">\\2</a>&nbsp;\\3':'\\0'))",
   "stripslashes((strlen('\\2')>0?'\\1<a href=\"http://\\2\" target=\"_blank\">\\2</a>&nbsp;\\4':'\\0'))",
   "stripslashes((strlen('\\2')>0?'\\1<a href=\"\\2\" target=\"_blank\">\\3</a>&nbsp;':'\\0'))",
 ),  
 $text
);

Changes:

• I removed rules #2 and #3 (I'm not sure in which situations are useful).
• Removed email parsing as I really don't need it.
• I added one more rule which allows the recognition of URLs in the form: [domain]/* (without www). For example: "example.com/faq/" (Multiple tld: domain.{2-3}.{2-4}/)
• When parsing strings starting with "http://", it removes it from the link label.
• Added "target='_blank'" to all links.
• Urls can be specified just after any(?) tag. For example: <b>www.example.com</b>

As "Søren Løvborg" has stated, this function does not escape the URLs. I tried his/her class but it just didn't work as I expected (If you don't trust your users, then try his/her code first).

As I mentioned in one of the comments above my VPS, which is running php 7, started emitting warnings Warning: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead. The buffer after the replacement was empty/false.

I have rewritten the code and made some improvements. If you think that you should be in the author section feel free to edit the comment above the function make_links_blank name. I am intentionally not using the closing php ?> to avoid inserting whitespace in the output.

<?php

class App_Updater_String_Util {
    public static function get_default_link_attribs( $regex_matches = [] ) {
        $t = ' target="_blank" ';
        return $t;
    }

    /**
     * App_Updater_String_Util::set_protocol();
     * @param string $link
     * @return string
     */
    public static function set_protocol( $link ) {
        if ( ! preg_match( '#^https?#si', $link ) ) {
            $link = 'http://' . $link;
        }
        return $link;
    }

/**
     * Goes through text and makes whatever text that look like a link an html link
     * which opens in a new tab/window (by adding target attribute).
     * 
     * Usage: App_Updater_String_Util::make_links_blank( $text );
     * 
     * @param str $text
     * @return str
     * @see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1188129/replace-urls-in-text-with-html-links
     * @author Angel.King.47 | http://dashee.co.uk
     * @author Svetoslav Marinov (Slavi) | http://orbisius.com
     */
    public static function make_links_blank( $text ) {
        $patterns = [
            '#(?(?=<a[^>]*>.+?<\/a>)
                 (?:<a[^>]*>.+<\/a>)
                 |
                 ([^="\']?)((?:https?|ftp):\/\/[^<> \n\r]+)
             )#six' => function ( $matches ) {
                $r1 = empty( $matches[1] ) ? '' : $matches[1];
                $r2 = empty( $matches[2] ) ? '' : $matches[2];
                $r3 = empty( $matches[3] ) ? '' : $matches[3];

                $r2 = empty( $r2 ) ? '' : App_Updater_String_Util::set_protocol( $r2 );
                $res = ! empty( $r2 ) ? "$r1<a href=\"$r2\">$r2</a>$r3" : $matches[0];
                $res = stripslashes( $res );

                return $res;
             },

            '#(^|\s)((?:https?://|www\.|https?://www\.)[^<>\ \n\r]+)#six' => function ( $matches ) {
                $r1 = empty( $matches[1] ) ? '' : $matches[1];
                $r2 = empty( $matches[2] ) ? '' : $matches[2];
                $r3 = empty( $matches[3] ) ? '' : $matches[3];

                $r2 = ! empty( $r2 ) ? App_Updater_String_Util::set_protocol( $r2 ) : '';
                $res = ! empty( $r2 ) ? "$r1<a href=\"$r2\">$r2</a>$r3" : $matches[0];
                $res = stripslashes( $res );

                return $res;
            },

            // Remove any target attribs (if any)
            '#<a([^>]*)target="?[^"\']+"?#si' => '<a\\1',

            // Put the target attrib
            '#<a([^>]+)>#si' => '<a\\1 target="_blank">',

            // Make emails clickable Mailto links
            '/(([\w\-]+)(\\.[\w\-]+)*@([\w\-]+)
                (\\.[\w\-]+)*)/six' => function ( $matches ) {

                $r = $matches[0];
                $res = ! empty( $r ) ? "<a href=\"mailto:$r\">$r</a>" : $r;
                $res = stripslashes( $res );

                return $res;
            },
        ];

        foreach ( $patterns as $regex => $callback_or_replace ) {
            if ( is_callable( $callback_or_replace ) ) {
                $text = preg_replace_callback( $regex, $callback_or_replace, $text );
            } else {
                $text = preg_replace( $regex, $callback_or_replace, $text );
            }
        }

        return $text;
    }
}

If you want to trust the IANA you can get your current list of offcially supported TLDs in use there like:

  $validTLDs = 
explode("\n", file_get_contents('http://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt')); //get the official list of valid tlds
  array_shift($validTLDs); //throw away first line containing meta data
  array_pop($validTLDs); //throw away last element which is empty

Makes Søren Løvborg's solution #2 a bit less verbose and spares you the hassle of updating the list, nowadays new tlds are thrown out so carelessly ;)

Something along the lines of :

<?php
if(preg_match('@^http://(.*)\s|$@g', $textarea_url, $matches)) {
    echo '<a href=http://", $matches[1], '">', $matches[1], '</a>';
}
?>

This class changes the urls into text and while keeping the home url as it is. I hope this will help and save time for you.Enjoy.

class RegClass 
{ 

     function preg_callback_url($matches) 
     { 
        //var_dump($matches); 
        //Get the matched URL  text <a>text</a>
        $text = $matches[2];
        //Get the matched URL link <a href ="http://www.test.com">text</a>
        $url = $matches[1];

        if($url=='href ="http://www.test.com"'){
         //replace all a tag as it is
         return '<a href='.$url.' rel="nofollow"> '.$text.' </a>'; 

         }else{
         //replace all a tag to text
         return " $text " ;
         }
} 
function ParseText($text){ 

    $text = preg_replace( "/www\./", "http://www.", $text );
        $regex ="/http:\/\/http:\/\/www\./"
    $text = preg_replace( $regex, "http://www.", $text );
        $regex2 = "/https:\/\/http:\/\/www\./";
    $text = preg_replace( $regex2, "https://www.", $text );

        return preg_replace_callback('/<a\s(.+?)>(.+?)<\/a>/is',
                array( &$this,        'preg_callback_url'), $text); 
      } 

} 
$regexp = new RegClass();
echo $regexp->ParseText($text);

This worked for me (turned one of the answers into a PHP function)

function make_urls_from_text ($text){
   return preg_replace('/(http[s]{0,1}\:\/\/\S{4,})\s{0,}/ims', '<a href="$1" target="_blank">$1 </a>', $text);
}

This class I created works for my needs, admittedly it does needs some work though;

class addLink
{
    public function link($string)
    {
        $expression = "/(?i)\b((?:https?:\/\/|www\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,63}\/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\))+(?:\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’]))/";
        if(preg_match_all($expression, $string, $matches) == 1)// If the pattern is found then
        {
            $string = preg_replace($expression, '<a href="'.$matches[0][0].'" target="_blank">$1</a>', $string);
        }

        return $string;       
    }
}

An example of using this code;

include 'PHP/addLink.php';

if(class_exists('addLink')) 
{                  
    $al = new addLink();                  
}
else{
    echo 'Class not found...';
} 

$paragraph = $al->link($paragraph);

This is just a variation of the solution posted by Dharmendra Jadon, so if you like it up vote his instead!

I just added a parameter to make opening the link in a new window (target="_blank") optional, as I saw this in some of the other solutions and liked the flexibility:

function MakeUrls($str, $popup = FALSE)
{
    $find=array('`((?:https?|ftp)://\S+[[:alnum:]]/?)`si','`((?<!//)(www\.\S+[[:alnum:]]/?))`si');

    $replace=array('<a href="$1"' . ($popup ? ' target="_blank"' : '') . '>$1</a>', '<a href="http://$1"' . ($popup ? ' target="_blank"' : '') . '>$1</a>');

    return preg_replace($find,$replace,$str);
}