Find URL in string and turn into a link - php

Question

I'm using the code given on this page to look through a string and turn the URL into an HTML link.
It works quite well, but there is a little issue with the "replace" part of it.
The problem occurs when I have almost identical links. For example:
https://example.com/page.php?goto=200
and
https://example.com/page.php
Everything will be fine with the first link, but the second will create a <a> tag in the first <a> tag.
First run
https://example.com/page.php?goto=200
Second
https://example.com/page.php?goto=200">https://example.com/page.php?goto=200</a>
Because it's also replacing the html link just created.
How do I avoid this?
<?php
function turnUrlIntoHyperlink($string){
//The Regular Expression filter
$reg_exUrl = "/(?i)\b((?:https?:\/\/|www\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}\/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\))+(?:\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’]))/";
// Check if there is a url in the text
if(preg_match_all($reg_exUrl, $string, $url)) {
// Loop through all matches
foreach($url[0] as $newLinks){
if(strstr( $newLinks, ":" ) === false){
$link = 'http://'.$newLinks;
}else{
$link = $newLinks;
}
// Create Search and Replace strings
$search = $newLinks;
$replace = ''.$link.'';
$string = str_replace($search, $replace, $string);
}
}
//Return result
return $string;
}
?>

Answer 1

You need to add a whitespace identifier \s in your regex at the start, also remove \b because \b only returns the last match.
You regex can written as:
$reg_exUrl = "/(?i)\s((?:https?:\/\/|www\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}\/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\))+(?:\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’]))/"
check this one: https://regex101.com/r/YFQPlZ/1

Answer 2

I have change the replace part a bit, since I couldn't get the suggested regex to work.
Maybe it can be done better, but I'm still learning :)
function turnUrlIntoHyperlink($string){
//The Regular Expression filter
$reg_exUrl = "/(?i)\b((?:https?:\/\/|www\d{0,3}[.]|[a-z0-9.\-]+[.][a-z]{2,4}\/)(?:[^\s()<>]+|\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\))+(?:\(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)|[^\s`!()\[\]{};:'\".,<>?«»“”‘’]))/";
// Check if there is a url in the text
if(preg_match_all($reg_exUrl, $string, $url)) {
// Loop through all matches
foreach($url[0] as $key => $newLinks){
if(strstr( $newLinks, ":" ) === false){
$url = 'https://'.$newLinks;
}else{
$url = $newLinks;
}
// Create Search and Replace strings
$replace .= ''.$url.',';
$newLinks = '/'.preg_quote($newLinks, '/').'/';
$string = preg_replace($newLinks, '{'.$key.'}', $string, 1);
}
$arr_replace = explode(',', $replace);
foreach ($arr_replace as $key => $link) {
$string = str_replace('{'.$key.'}', $link, $string);
}
}
//Return result
return $string;
}