php html create link from text

Question

I found a routine to create a html link when a link is found in a text

 <?php
 function makelink($text) 
 {
 return preg_replace('/(http://[a-zA-Z0-9_-.]*?) /i', '<a href="$1">$1</a> ', $text." "); 
 } 

 // works
 echo makelink ("hello how http://www.guruk.com ");

 // dont work
 echo makelink ("hello how http://www.guruk.com/test.php ");

?>

as you see in the example, it works find with a domain only, not when there is a page or subdirectory is within that link.

Can you provide a solution for that function to work also with pages and subdirs?

thx chris

Answer 1

The characters ?=& are for urls with query strings. Notice that I changed the separator from / to ! because there a lot of slashes in your expression. Also note that you don't need A-Z if you are in case-insensitive mode.

return preg_replace('!(http://[a-z0-9_./?=&-]+)!i', '<a href="$1">$1</a> ', $text." ");