BBcode editor: PHP [Page 2 of 3]

Misc Links

Ads

Age of Valor - Ultima Online Free Shard
AoS/SE/ML/Custom - advanced code, dedicated staff, peerless bosses, non overpowered customs + much much more

Latest Forum Topics

New Bathroom Fan I Bought
Posted by Red Squirrel
on Sep 06 2010, 9:08:47 pm

Duke Nukem Forever
Posted by Red Squirrel
on Sep 04 2010, 1:28:13 am

Dr. Santa Claus?
Posted by Red Squirrel
on Sep 04 2010, 5:12:17 pm

Vmware Shifts Pricing Strategy
Posted by Red Squirrel
on Sep 02 2010, 7:09:04 pm

Badass Chipmunk
Posted by Triple6_wild
on Sep 01 2010, 1:06:15 am

Send spam to: website@xeonlive.com nick@xeonlive.com georgiapeach1241@aol.com BBcode editor: PHP
Regular expressions and all things nice
By Jonathan Street

Okay, let's get this function started!

function output_post ($post) {

First of all we want to start our function. I've called it output_post. It will take just one variable, $post, this will be the bbCode formatted text.

//Make safe any html
$post_no_html = htmlspecialchars($post);

//Make sure there is no whitespace at the end of the message
//It's conceivable that the user will start their message with whitespace
$post_abridged = chop($post_no_html);

First of all a couple of house keeping tasks. The whole reason for allowing our users to use bbCode is so that they don't use html. The first thing we do therefore is make sure html won't work using htmlspecialchars. htmlspecialchars converts the characters necessary for html markup to their character entity references. Secondly we chop the post. This gets rid of any whitespace characters at the end of the visitors submission.

Next we need to tackle the code tag. Unlike the other tags we don't want any other tags working when nested within code tags. The whole point of the code tags is that it is displayed exactly as typed. Because of this it can't be treated in the same way as the other tags. As you'll see later we're able to deal with all the other tags with just one function. Code needs to be treated seperately.

//Callback function for preg_replace_callback below
        function convert_for_html ($matches) {
                $regex[0] = "[";
                $regex[1] = "]";
                $replace[0] = "[";
                $replace[1] = "]";
                ksort($regex);
                ksort($replace);
                $treated = str_replace($regex, $replace, $matches[1]);
                $output = '<table class="code"><tr><td>Code:</td></tr><tr><td class="code_box">' . $treated . '</td></tr></table>';

                return $output;
        }

        //Convert code tags
        $code_treated = preg_replace_callback(
                        "/\[code\](.+?)\[\/code\]/s",
                   "convert_for_html",
                   $post_abridged);

What we do here is search through the visitors' submission looking for text that matches the regular expression "/\[code\](.+?)\[\/code\]/s" (I'll come back to the regular expression) using preg_replace_callback, when we find it we send this text to the function convert_for_html. The simplest way to stop bbCode tags within code tags being converted later is to change them to something else. For this we substitute the [ and ] characters with their character entity references, &#091 and &#093, using the str_replace function. To anybody viewing the submission it will look just the same but it won't be converted by our code. We then put the text between the code tags in a table and re-insert it into the post.

Before we take a closer look at that regular expression it will make more sense to throw the other bbCode tags into the mix. They're all made in the same way.

Next Page
spacer

29339 Hits

Pages: [1] [2] [3]

8 Comments

Latest comments (newest first)

Posted by unokpasabaxaki on March 03th 2008 (19:44)
I also had a "blank page" problem, but I've resolved it.
When I saw the function returned an empty string, I checked the code, and after copying outside of the function, I found out that it failed because I had missed the "code" part. I had:
CODE
$post_abridged = chop($post_no_html);
$bbcode_regex = [...]
$post_bbcode_treated = preg_replace($bbcode_regex, $bbcode_replace, $code_treated);

I changed "$code_treated" to "$post_abridged", because I hadn't defined the "$code_treated" variable at missing the "code" part.
So if you find that the script returns a blank page, make sure you haven't missed any step; and if you have, change the variable name.

[Sorry about my bad English: I'm Spanish and I'm not very confident with it]
spacer

Posted by AdRock on September 09st 2007 (06:12)
I have worked out why it wouldn't work before by following the article again but I still can't output what is entered in the form. All I get is a blank page
spacer

Posted by AdRock on August 08th 2007 (20:12)
I have got the form with the BBcode working fine now after reading the article properly but I am now stuck on converting teh BBcode into HTML.

First thing...is the file supposed to be called bbcode.php like referred to in the first part of the article?

Second thing....is there a complete listing of the bbcode.php? I have gone through the second part and put the code together but when i try and preview what I have done...it just echoes this

QUOTE
function output_post ($post) { //Make safe any html $post_no_html = htmlspecialchars($post); //Make sure there is no whitespace at the end of the message //It's conceivable that the user will start their message with whitespace $post_abridged = chop($post_no_html); //Callback function for preg_replace_callback below function convert_for_html ($matches) { $regex[0] = "["; $regex[1] = "]"; $replace[0] = "["; $replace[1] = "]"; ksort($regex); ksort($replace); $treated = str_replace($regex, $replace, $matches[1]); $output = 'Code:
' . $treated . '
'; return $output; } //Convert code tags $code_treated = preg_replace_callback( "/\[code\](.+?)\[\/code\]/s", "convert_for_html", $post_abridged); //Arrays for the bbCode replacements $bbcode_regex = array(0 => '/\[b\](.+?)\[\/b\]/s', 1 => '/\[i\](.+?)\[\/i\]/s', 2 => '/\[u\](.+?)\[\/u\]/s', 3 => '/\[quote\](.+?)\[\/quote\]/s', 4 => '/\[quote\=(.+?)](.+?)\[\/quote\]/s', 5 => '/\[url\](.+?)\[\/url\]/s', 6 => '/\[url\=(.+?)\](.+?)\[\/url\]/s', 7 => '/\[img\](.+?)\[\/img\]/s', 8 => '/\[color\=(.+?)\](.+?)\[\/color\]/s', 9 => '/\[size\=(.+?)\](.+?)\[\/size\]/s'); $bbcode_replace = array(0 => '$1', 1 => '$1', 2 => '$1', 3 => 'Quote:
$1
', 4 => '$1 said:
$2
', 5 => '$1', 6 => '$2', 7 => '', 8 => '$2', 9 => '$2'); ksort($bbcode_regex); ksort($bbcode_replace); //preg_replace to convert all remaining bbCode tags $post_bbcode_treated = preg_replace($bbcode_regex, $bbcode_replace, $code_treated); //Convert new lines to
$post_with_br = nl2br($post_bbcode_treated); echo $post_with_br; };

How do i get this working?
spacer

Posted by Red Squirrel on October 10th 2005 (19:30)
Hey sorry to the person who just posted and got hit with the spam bot. really not sure why it snapped. Must be the word compliant, thats often in spam.

Feel free to register as the spam bot validation wears off after some posts.
spacer

Posted by MikeDB on October 10th 2005 (15:04)
Yes yes I dont nkow why im even answering to this post but... Yes.
spacer

View all comments
Post comment

Top Articles	Latest Articles
- What are .bin files for? (592886 reads) - Big Brother and Ndisuio.sys (143128 reads) - PSP User's Guide (127762 reads) - Text searching in linux with grep (115254 reads) - SPFDisk (Special Fdisk) Partition Manager (101260 reads)	- Dynamic Forum Signatures (version 2) (4689 reads) - Successfully Hacking your iPhone or iTouch (14355 reads) - Ultima Online Newbie Guide (25095 reads) - BBcode editor: PHP - The sensible approach (17928 reads) - The Hitch Hikers guide to "the mouse" (15309 reads)