Text replacement

[wrathican]

hey peeps

 

i have made a simple CMS and im trying to add a bit more functionality it. i'm trying to do this by adding a simple text formatter. as it stands im having to create my own bbcode functions because my host will not add the PEAR BBCodeParser.

 

ive got the whole insert the tags into the textarea sorted.

 

the only problem is the parser.

 

this is what i'm working on at the moment, but it really doesn't output what i expect:

<?php

function bbCode($string) {

//formatting
$string = ereg_replace("[b]", "<strong>", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[/b]", "</strong>", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[u]", "<u>", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[/u]", "</u>", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[i]", "<i>", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[/i]", "</i>", $string);

//links


//images
$string = ereg_replace("[img]", "<img src=\"", $string);
$string = ereg_replace("[/img]", "\" alt=\"Image\" />", $string);

return $string;

}

?>

 

when testing it it outputs this:

[<stron<" alt="Image" />" alt="Image" />" alt="Image" /> src=">]

while it should just output <strong>

 

This is the test in running:

<?php

$string = "[b]";

$string = bbCode($string);

$string = htmlentities($string);

echo $string;

?>

 

any ideas, suggestions?

 

Thanks

[effigy]

Square brackets are metacharacters that create character classes, so they need to be escaped to match literals: \[b\]. Additionally, do not use regex when working with static strings--use str_replace.

 

Signed,

 

A peep.

[DarkWater]

Square brackets are metacharacters that create character classes, so they need to be escaped to match literals: \[b\]. Additionally, do not use regex when working with static strings--use str_replace.

 

Signed,

 

A peep.

 

LOL I just laughed pretty hard at that Peeps thing.

[wrathican]

yeah me too..

 

thanks for the advice. i didn't know about the literals. learn something new. especially with the language..

[discomatt]

Square brackets are metacharacters that create character classes, so they need to be escaped to match literals: \[b\]. Additionally, do not use regex when working with static strings--use str_replace.

 

Signed,

 

A peep.

 

Just for educational purposes, the reason for doing this is that regex is very slow compared to PHP's build in string functions... usually around 30-40x slower for the most basic comparisons.

[wrathican]

thanks for the info.

 

however i'm still having a bit of trouble with creating the function.

this is what i have:

<?php

function bbCode($string) {

$bbcodes = array(
	'\[b\]',
	'\[/b\]',
	'\[i\]',
	'\[/i\]',
	'\[u\]',
	'\[/u\]'
)

$htmlcodes = array(
	'<strong>',
	'</strong>',
	'<em>',
	'</em>',
	'<u>',
	'</u>'
)

$string = str_replace($bbcodes, $htmlcodes, $string);

return $string;

}
?>

i'm still running the same text and i am having no luck with it.

Am i doing something wrong?

Thanks

[JasonLewis]

You don't need to escape the square brackets with str_replace(). Only regular expressions would require that. Also, you're missing two semi-colons ( ; ) after your arrays.

[wrathican]

ok i removed the escaping and added the semi colons

 

and the output is '3'

 

here is my new source:

function bbCode($string) {

$bbcodes = array(
	'[b]',
	'[/b]',
	'[i]',
	'[/i]'
);

$htmlcodes = array(
	'<strong>',
	'</strong>',
	'<em>',
	'</em>'
);

$string = str_replace($bbcodes, $htmlcodes, $string);

return $string;

}

 

testing script:

<?php

include 'functions.php';

$string = "[b]bllaaaahhhhhh[/b]";

$string = bbCode($string);

$string = htmlentities($string);

echo $string;

?>

help?

im an unhappy bunny

[effigy]

I get: <strong>bllaaaahhhhhh</strong>.

 

 

[wrathican]

hmm it works now,

 

one question, how would i parse links?

links would ideally look like this in BBCode:

Link to blah

 

is there a way of getting the contents of the link and the text for the link then wrapping them appropriately?

 

i was going to do it like so:

add '[url=' to my array of bbcodes then replace it with '<a href="' then do a similar thing for the end..

 

:S

 

Thanks

[JasonLewis]

Search the Regex within PHP board, you should turn up some good results.