Find url from string with php

Question

following code is used to find url from a string with php. Here is the code:

$string = "Hello http://www.bytes.com world www.yahoo.com";
preg_match('/(http:\/\/[^\s]+)/', $string, $text);
$hypertext = "<a href=\"". $text[0] . "\">" . $text[0] . "</a>";
$newString = preg_replace('/(http:\/\/[^\s]+)/', $hypertext, $string);
echo $newString;

Well, it shows a link but if i provide few link it doesn't work and also if i write without http:// then it doesn't show link. I want whatever link is provided it should be active, Like stackoverflow.com.

Any help please..

possible duplicate of PHP: Regular Expression to get a URL from a string — Gordon
– Gordon, Commented Feb 5, 2012 at 18:16

axiomer · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-05 18:31:57Z

18

A working method for linking with http/https/ftp/ftps/scp/scps: $newStr = preg_replace('!(http|ftp|scp)(s)?:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9.?&_/]+!', "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>",$str);

I strongly advise NOT linking when it only has a dot, because it will consider PHP 5.2, ASP.NET, etc. links, which is hardly acceptable.

Update: if you want www. strings as well, take a look at this.

edited Feb 5, 2012 at 18:31

answered Feb 5, 2012 at 18:20

axiomer

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5 Comments

user1161867 Over a year ago

well @axiomer, but it's not active if i write www.example.com

axiomer Over a year ago

Updated my solution with a link (I didn't test it but it should work, I think).

doubleJ Over a year ago

This doesn't work if the URL has a hyphen (-). The link ends before the hyphen.

Cesar Bielich Over a year ago

this worked for me but I noticed that when I linked youtube videos it broke the link at the = sign so I modified it to work with youtube video links $newStr = preg_replace('!(http|ftp|scp)(s)?:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9.?&_/=]+!', "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>",$str);

Mukesh Chapagain Over a year ago

Updated code to make it work when the URL has a hyphen (-), % or = sign: $newStr = preg_replace('!(http|ftp|scp)(s)?:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9.?%=\-&_/]+!', "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>",$str);

bummzack · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-05 18:35:11Z

3

If you want to detect something like stackoverflow.com, then you're going to have to check for all possible TLDs to rule out something like Web 2.0, which is quite a long list. Still, this is also going to match something as ASP.NET etc.

The regex would looks something like this:

$hypertext = preg_replace(
    '{\b(?:http://)?(www\.)?([^\s]+)(\.com|\.org|\.net)\b}mi',
    '<a href="http://$1$2$3">$1$2$3</a>',
    $text
);

This only matches domains ending in .com, .org and .net... as previously stated, you would have to extend this list to match all TLDs

answered Feb 5, 2012 at 18:35

bummzack

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1 Comment

doubleJ Over a year ago

This only works for the domain portion. If the string includes directories and/or files, the link will end before those.

Piotr Olaszewski · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-21 08:27:28Z

0

@axiomer your example wasn't work if link will be in format:

https://stackoverflow.com?val1=bla&val2blablabla%20bla%20bla.bl

correct solution:

preg_replace('!(http|ftp|scp)(s)?:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9.?%=&_/]+!', "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>", $content);

produces:

<a href="https://stackoverflow.com?val1=bla&val2blablabla%20bla%20bla.bl">https://stackoverflow.com?val1=bla&val2blablabla%20bla%20bla.bl</a>

answered Jan 21, 2015 at 8:27

Piotr Olaszewski

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1 Comment

Omar N Shamali Over a year ago

preg_replace('!(http|ftp|scp)(s)?:\/\/(.*)+!', "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>", $str);

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