How to remove links from a PHP string using preg_replace

Question

I'm using a chat bot script, if a user name was [email protected] the bot will reply @ <a href= mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]</a> with a mailto link. I want the reply to be only [email protected] without the link, I tried preg_replace and str_replace but I don't really know the exact code to use, I've tried the following but didnt work !

$name = preg_replace('/<a href="([^<]*)">([^<]*)<\/a>/', '', $name);

The whole code I'm using for replacements is this:

$name = str_replace (chr(0xc2).chr(0xa0), "_", $name);
$name = str_replace ("'", "", $name);
$name = str_replace ("&quot;", '"', $name);
$name = str_replace ("&amp;", "&", $name);
$name = str_replace ("&lt;", "", $name);
$name = str_replace ("&gt;", "", $name);
$name = str_replace ("&", "_", $name);
$name = str_replace ("*", "_", $name);
$name = preg_replace('/[^ \p{L}\p{N} \@ \_ \- \.\#\$\&\!]/u', '', $name);
$name = preg_replace('/<a href="([^<]*)">([^<]*)<\/a>/', '', $name);

This blog post will help your case themessycode.blogspot.com/2013/08/… — DevZer0
– DevZer0, Commented Aug 11, 2013 at 15:35

Langdi · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-11 15:57:47Z

1

Why do you want to replace it? Just use preg_match() with a regex similar to this:

<a href=[^>]+>([^<]*)</a>

so overall your code would look like this

<?php
$regex = '#<a href=[^>]+>([^<]*)</a>#';
$email = '<a href= mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]</a>';

preg_match($regex, $email, $matches);
var_dump($matches[1]);
/*
output:
string(13) "[email protected]"
*/
?>

edited Aug 11, 2013 at 15:57

answered Aug 11, 2013 at 15:37

Langdi

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4 Comments

GuestofHonor Over a year ago

this is in case of email [email protected], this is just to show that it's an email name, i want it to remove the mailto link from any name that matches [email protected] not only [email protected]

Langdi Over a year ago

No, this doesn't only work on [email protected], why would you think that? $email here is equivalent to $name in your question.

GuestofHonor Over a year ago

so if i want to use the code for any name that is in email format what should i use ?!

Langdi Over a year ago

The code above. Sorry, but I don't really know what your question is. After preg_match $matches[1] contains your value. So you could do $name = $matches[1] for further processing.

Adam · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-11 18:02:38Z

The answer above makes a lot of assumptions when doing the preg_replace so it's going to fail lots unfortunately :( Here's why...

It assumes every link has the 'href' attribute directly after the 'a' tag. What if there's a different attribute in front of it?
It assumes there are no other html tags inside the 'a' tag. If the link had the 'strong' tag inside it, the link would not be matched.
I'm pretty sure too that if there's more than one link in the list it's going to remove everything between the first link and the second because it hasn't got anything to stop it being greedy.
Finally, it's not been told to be insensitive. This means that if the link had A HREF in it, that wouldn't be found either.

I'm not saying my solution is 100% secure but I've tested it in scenarios I'm aware of and I think it's an upgrade from the answer above!...

$email = preg_replace("/<a.+?href.+?>.+?<\/a>/is","",$email);

The 'i' modifier makes it insensitive The 's' modifier takes into account links that might be broken with newline breaks.

I'd always recommend populating a string with different links in different formats, different orders etc. That's always the best way to test things work. Assuming eveyone types links as My test is going to get you into lots of sticky situations :)

Good luck!

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