Regular Expression Help Requested.

[siteguru]

I am using the method below to parse text from a database and convert links into actual hyperlinks ...

$linkpattrn = "/\b((http(s?):\/\/)|(www\.))([\w\.]+)([\/\w+\.]+)\b/i";
$linkreplace = "<a href=\"http$3://$4$5$6\" target=\"_blank\">$2$4$5$6</a>";
$desc = preg_replace ($linkpattrn, $linkreplace, $callrow->ProbDesc);
$desc = nl2br ($desc); 

... This works fine in almost all cases - except if the path has a space or %20 in it, in which case the hyperlink terminates at the first space (or %20). How can I amend $linkpattrn to cater for this?

Regular expressions are not my strong point - as you can probably gather.

[peanuts]

reg expressions are not my strongest point (at all

But I did get some really good responses a bit back ...

http://www.sitepointforums.com/showt...hreadid=103570

I hope it helps ...

[siteguru]

Not sure that's doing the same thing as I am after (it seems to be looking for existing <a> tags and checking them for putting in the target attribute) but thanks anyway for trying.

[siteguru]

Can anyone else offer any ( clean ) suggestions? It's not life-threatening but any workable solutions would help advance my education in this area.

[siteguru]

I guess the answer is no then, ah?

[peanuts]

how about a str_replace %20 for a whitespace ?? or some other symbol..
I know it sounds quick and dirty (esspecially the latter )

[siteguru]

That might work - I could replace space and %20 with an obscure character (e.g. §), do the preg_match, then replace § back to %20. Not the ideal approach though and I'm sure the change to $linkpattrn must be quite simple but I just can't quite see it.