newlines, hyperlinks and email links

[dkode]

What is the proper order to do the following:

I have data in a mysql database that is simply text. Some things i use nl2br and other things i use a homemade function to do the email links and hyperlinks

function makelinks($data,$br=1) {
    // Replace tekstlink with HyperLink
    $data = ereg_replace('www+(\.[[:alnum:]~_-]+)+([/\.][[:alnum:]?&=~_-]+)*/*', '<A HREF="http://\\0" TARGET="_blank">\\0</A>', $data);

    // Replace mailtext with HyperLink
    $data = ereg_replace('[A-Za-z0-9]([A-Za-z0-9._]*[A-Za-z0-9]|())@[A-Za-z0-9]([A-Za-z0-9.\-]*[A-Za-z0-9]|())\.[A-Za-z]+', '<A HREF="mailto:\\0">\\0</A>', $data);
    
    // Insert Break tags before newlines
    if ($br == 1) {
        $data = nl2br($data);
    }
    
    return $data;
} 

this makelinks function seems to be buggy sometimes when mixed with the html_entities function and so on. Is there anyway to simplify how to process input that lays in the database when displayed on the website?

[redux]

maybe i'm stating the obvious, but if i understand it correctly your problem is that when you run your homegrown function followed by html_entities, it messes up display (as it will replace all your <, > etc). how about running html_entities first and then makelinks ?
if i totally misunderstood the problem...my apologies for naff advice...

[weirdbeardmt]

No idea, but cheers for the ereg to change links into links... have been scratching my head all afternoon on that one...