Parse a String with BB Code or RSS using PHP

Alex — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:01:05 +0000

Writing a function to parse BB Code and RSS Feeds each time you need them is a pain. Here’s a use function to throw into an include or just have on hand for later.

A little while ago I was stuck reading forum content outside of the forums. Pulling anything from the database is easy but without a nice set of functions to handle the odd strings that can somehow come out, it can be a little difficult. This function here made everything a lot better. Unless your forums look like this:

This string handling function will do most of work for you once you set the tags. To improve on the function, just make parsed tags dynamic and pass them into the function when calling it.

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
01 
02 // Setup functions
03 function get_string_between($string, $start, $end){
04         $string = " ".$string;
05         $ini = strpos($string,$start);
06         if ($ini == 0) return "";
07         $ini += strlen($start);   
08         $len = strpos($string,$end,$ini) - $ini;
09         return substr($string,$ini,$len);
10 }
11  
12 $fullstring = "this is my [tag]app[/tag]";
13 $parsed = get_string_between($fullstring, "[tag]", "[/tag]");
14  
15 echo $parsed; // (result = app) 
16

String Handling: Parsing Links from a String

Alex — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:33:17 +0000

With the popularity of APIs that connect to Twitter, Facebook, and even sites like StumbleUpon, it’s becoming increasing important to work with String Handling functions.

Here’s a very handy function to replace a link in a String with the html format for posting on the web.

I can’t remember where I got this from but someone deserves credit for helping write this:

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
01  
02 function clickable_link($text)
03 {
04  $text = preg_replace('#(script|about|applet|activex|chrome):#is', ":", $text);
05  
06  // pad it with a space so we can match things at the start of the 1st line.
07  $ret = ' ' . $text;
08  
09  // matches an "xxxx://yyyy" URL at the start of a line, or after a space.
10  // xxxx can only be alpha characters.
11  // yyyy is anything up to the first space, newline, comma, double quote or <
12  $ret = preg_replace("#(^|[\n ])([\w]+?://[\w\#$%&~/.\-;:=,?@\[\]+]*)#is", "", $ret);
13  
14  // matches a "www|ftp.xxxx.yyyy[/zzzz]" kinda lazy URL thing
15  // Must contain at least 2 dots. xxxx contains either alphanum, or "-"
16  // zzzz is optional.. will contain everything up to the first space, newline,
17  // comma, double quote or <.
18  $ret = preg_replace("#(^|[\n ])((www|ftp)\.[\w\#$%&~/.\-;:=,?@\[\]+]*)#is", "", $ret);
19  
20  // matches an email@domain type address at the start of a line, or after a space.
21  // Note: Only the followed chars are valid; alphanums, "-", "_" and or ".".
22  $ret = preg_replace("#(^|[\n ])([a-z0-9&\-_.]+?)@([\w\-]+\.([\w\-\.]+\.)*[\w]+)#i", "@", $ret);
23  
24  // Remove our padding..
25  $ret = substr($ret, 1);
26  return $ret;
27 }
28

01
02	// Setup functions
03	function get_string_between($string, $start, $end){
04	$string = " ".$string;
05	$ini = strpos($string,$start);
06	if ($ini == 0) return "";
07	$ini += strlen($start);
08	$len = strpos($string,$end,$ini) - $ini;
09	return substr($string,$ini,$len);
10	}
11
12	$fullstring = "this is my [tag]app[/tag]";
13	$parsed = get_string_between($fullstring, "[tag]", "[/tag]");
14
15	echo $parsed; // (result = app)
16

01
02	function clickable_link($text)
03	{
04	$text = preg_replace('#(script\|about\|applet\|activex\|chrome):#is', ":", $text);
05
06	// pad it with a space so we can match things at the start of the 1st line.
07	$ret = ' ' . $text;
08
09	// matches an "xxxx://yyyy" URL at the start of a line, or after a space.
10	// xxxx can only be alpha characters.
11	// yyyy is anything up to the first space, newline, comma, double quote or <
12	$ret = preg_replace("#(^\|[\n ])([\w]+?://[\w\#$%&~/.\-;:=,?@\[\]+]*)#is", "", $ret);
13
14	// matches a "www\|ftp.xxxx.yyyy[/zzzz]" kinda lazy URL thing
15	// Must contain at least 2 dots. xxxx contains either alphanum, or "-"
16	// zzzz is optional.. will contain everything up to the first space, newline,
17	// comma, double quote or <.
18	$ret = preg_replace("#(^\|[\n ])((www\|ftp)\.[\w\#$%&~/.\-;:=,?@\[\]+]*)#is", "", $ret);
19
20	// matches an email@domain type address at the start of a line, or after a space.
21	// Note: Only the followed chars are valid; alphanums, "-", "_" and or ".".
22	$ret = preg_replace("#(^\|[\n ])([a-z0-9&\-_.]+?)@([\w\-]+\.([\w\-\.]+\.)*[\w]+)#i", "@", $ret);
23
24	// Remove our padding..
25	$ret = substr($ret, 1);
26	return $ret;
27	}
28

Application Developer » parse

Parse a String with BB Code or RSS using PHP

String Handling: Parsing Links from a String