URL to Link

URL to Link

How often have you needed to create a clickable link from a URL or email address. Here is a simple yet robust function to help you on your way. For this to work a valid url with protocol must be specified. eg: www.phpro.org will not work, because no protocol is provided.


<?php/*** example usage ***/$string="http://www.phpro.org";
echo makelink( $string )."\n";
$string = "http://phpro.org";
echo makelink( $string )."\n";
// this is not a valid URL$string = "www.phpro.org";
echo makelink( $string )."\n";
/**
*
* Function to make URLs into links
*
* @param string The url string
* @return string
*
**/function makeLink($string){
/*** make sure there is an http:// on all URLs ***/$string = preg_replace("/([^\w\/])(www\.[a-z0-9\-]+\.[a-z0-9\-]+)/i", "$1http://$2",$string);/*** make all URLs links ***/$string = preg_replace("/([\w]+:\/\/[\w-?&;#~=\.\/\@]+[\w\/])/i","<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"$1\">$1</a>",$string);/*** make all emails hot links ***/$string = preg_replace("/([\w-?&;#~=\.\/]+\@(\[?)[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.([a-zA-Z]{2,3}|[0-9]{1,3})(\]?))/i","<a href=\"mailto:$1\">$1</a>",$string);

return $string;
}
?>