PHP Find Symbol and Replace It With The Word It Goes With

[M2com]

I want to create a script that will read a string and whenever the hashtag symbol (#) appears, it replaces it with a link. How could I do this?

I've only found scripts that just replace the # and not the word it's attached to.

Thanks!

[traq]

I've only found scripts that just replace the # and not the word it's attached to.

well, that's exactly what you described:

I want to create a script that will read a string and whenever the hashtag symbol (#) appears, it replaces it with a link

So, can you explain a little further? What do you want to accomplish?

1) #word  =>  <a href="http://example.com">link</a>
2) #word  =>  <a href="http://example.com">word</a>
3) #word  =>  <a href="http://word">link</a>
4) #word  =>  <a href="http://word">word</a>
5) something else?

[M2com]

Thanks for the reply, the second line in your code looks about what I want.

#word -> <a href='website.com/page.php?h=$word'>#word</a>

[traq]

read about preg_replace().

<?php #example
$text = "I want a link to the #homepage here.";

$newText = preg_replace( '/#([\w]+)/','<a href="http://website.com/page.php?h=$1">$1</a>',$text );

print $newText;
/* outputs:
    I want a link to the <a href="http://website.com/page.php?h=homepage">homepage</a> here.
*/

to explain the regex:

/#([\w]+)/

/           begin pattern
  #         a literal "#" symbol
  (         begin subpattern 
              (this allows you to backreference the match later with $1
    [       begin character class
              (a type of character to match)
      \w    "word character"
              (most characters, that don't separate words)
    ]       end character class
    +       one or more of the previous characters
  )         end subpattern
              (taken together, this means the "#" only qualifies if there are one or more "word characters" after it)
/           end pattern

[M2com]

Worked like a charm! Thanks very much for the snippet and full explanation, very helpful!

[traq]

no prob, glad I could help.

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