Reg Ex issue with smilie parser

I'm trying to modify a smilie parser to deal with smilie replacement text appearing in a URL and hence breaking the URL. I've got the following

PHP Code:

---

foreach ($this->smilieSearchArray as $key=>$value)
{
$parsedText = preg_replace('#(?<!&amp|&quot|&lt|&gt|&copy)' . preg_quote($value, '#') . '#s', $this->smilieReplaceArray[$key], $text);
} 


---

This works fine if I remove $value in the preg_replace function and replace it with some hard coded text, the smilie is subsequently shown. However, using $value then the smilie text is not replaced. Both the search and replace arrays are correct as I can echo them and see that they are set up correctly

It's probably something obvious that I'm missing but I just can't see it

bump

I found the bug with the script, as expected a stupid error where I was overwriting the parsedText with the original for every loop of the array except for the last. Stupid really :(

Anyway, I now have an issue where it is parsing smilies inside an <a href tag that has a javascript command e.g. <a href=javascript:openWindow. The parser will pick up the :o in the command and mess up the URL. I've tried to get to the bottom of it but no luck. Can anyone point me in the right direction to make sure it excludes any strings inside an HTML tag ?

in fact it does exactly what has appeared above :)

The simplest solution would be

PHP Code:

---

$test=<<<EEE
<a href='javascript:open'>foo :o bar</a>foo :o bar<img alt="foo :o bar">:o
EEE;

$test=preg_replace("~(>[^<]*)(:o)~","$1{smile}",$test); 


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This code is for wellformed xml though, eg it does not handle <> inside a tags like <a href="javascript:1>2">

I think "real-life" html parser cannot be made with regexps. You need something like sax parser for this.

Seems to work like a charm. I'm going to try and see if I can find normal circumstances under which it may break but it's better than what I had. In general I aim for XHTML 1.1 Strict so the code should be well-formed (famous last words :))

thanks, your help was much appreciated