Hi-

What I'd like is a ereg_replace example written in php, so that if
given the text <ASIN="2844140858">Book Title</ASIN>

the ereg_replace will return <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/2844140858/refferer_ID">Book
Title</a>.

Thanks,

Hi pulplitcom,

Assuming that your original text is in the variable $a, you can use
the following function call to convert the <ASIN> tag to the hyperlink
that you need:

   ereg_replace('<ASIN="([0-9X]*)">(.*)</ASIN>',
    '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/\\1/refferer_ID">\\2</a>',
    $a);

In the replacement string (the second string passed to ereg_replace)
the escape code \\1 represents the book number and \\2 represents the
book title (because we have enclosed those parts in parentheses in the
search string regular expression).

Here's a small PHP program that can be run from the command line to
illustrate how this all works. I checked it using PHP 4.3.3 under
Fedora Core 1 Linux:


<?php

function asin_replace($a) {
   return ereg_replace('<ASIN="([0-9X]*)">(.*)</ASIN>',
    '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/\\1/refferer_ID">\\2</a>',
    $a);
}

echo asin_replace('<ASIN="2844140858">Book Title</ASIN>') . "\n";

?>


Here is the output of this program when run from the command line:


Content-type: text/html
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.3

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/2844140858/refferer_ID">Book
Title</a>


I trust that this meets your requriements. Please request
clarification if there is any problem.


Additional references:

PHP: ereg_replace - Manual
http://uk.php.net/ereg_replace


Google Search Strategy:

php ereg_replace
://www.google.com/search?q=php+ereg_replace

php "define a function"
://www.google.com/search?q=php+%22define+a+function%22


Regards,
eiffel-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by pulplitcom-ga on 24 Apr 2004 16:26 PDT

This is outside the scope of the original question, but if possible
I'd like to ask a follow up question.

If $a = "<ASIN="2844140858">Test1</ASIN> Some other text.

<ASIN="2844140858">Test2</ASIN>

Ending text.",

the ereg_replace on the whole text outputs

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/2844140858/pulplit-20">Test1</ASIN>
Some other text.<ASIN="2844140858">Test2</a>Ending text.

Is there an easy way to apply the ereg_replace any number of
<ASIN></ASIN> statements so that instead thte </ASIN> will be replaced
by </a> in any number of instances?

Regards,

pulplitcom

---

Clarification of Answer by eiffel-ga on 25 Apr 2004 02:56 PDT

Hi pulplitcom,

If you want to replace all the occurrences of <ASIN>...</ASIN> at
once, you can use the preg_replace function.

However, preg-replace uses PERL-syntax regular expressions rather than
POSIX-syntax regular expressions as used by ereg_replace.

That's probably enough information for you to get it to work. However,
if you would prefer me to do that for you, you could post a new
question with "For eiffel-ga" in the subject line, and I can test it
out to see what (if any) differences will be necessary in the regular
expression. I don't know the answer off the top of my head, as I
normally use the POSIX forms.

Regards,
eiffel-ga

Perfect. Worked like a charm. Many thanks. Also, appreciate the clear
explanation; was beating my head against a wall trying to figure out
regular expressions myself.