Turning a name into a URL-friendly string in PHP?

Question

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URL Friendly Username in PHP?

I have something like this:

'mrt1' => 'Zhongxiao Dunhua Sun'

which will be included into an anchor link like this:

<a href="'. $mrt1 .'">'. $mrt1 .'</a>

I want the output to be something like this:

<a href="zhongxiao-dunhua-sun">Zhongxiao Dunhua Sun</a>

How to do it so that I can turn that name into a URL-frienly string (so I can place it in the href attribute)?

You mean remove everything but the alphanumeric characters? (And do lower case?) — Jared Farrish, Dec 13 '12 at 05:17
@Jared Farrish Yeah, and add the slashes between the words I guess — alexchenco, Dec 13 '12 at 05:19
Whoops, I thought this was for Javascript. So... `'Zhongxiao Dunhua Sun'.toLowerCase().replace(/ /g, '-').replace(/[^a-z\-]/gi, '');` — Jared Farrish, Dec 13 '12 at 05:21
@hakre - You seem a little cranky... `:)` That function is funky, but does cover the territory I was thinking it should (with special characters and etc.). — Jared Farrish, Dec 13 '12 at 05:40
@alexchenco - I did a demo with some different possibilities: http://codepad.org/rJNSQmGJ Alix Axel's `oSlug()` in his linked (by @hakre) answer looks with my somewhat limited test to work the best. @leepowers version, while close, doesn't handle some special characters. Also, I reformatted Alex's `oSlug()` function so it is easier to read; see `nSlug()`. — Jared Farrish, Dec 13 '12 at 06:39

leepowers · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-03T19:12:03.987

14

$s = ' Zhongxiao Dunhua Sun ';
$r = preg_replace('/\W+/', '-', strtolower(trim($s)));
echo("$r\n");

Replaces non-word characters with dashes
Converts to lowercase

edited Feb 03 '21 at 19:12

answered Dec 13 '12 at 05:18

leepowers

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Shouldn't you `trim()` pre-regex? – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 05:41
1

There are a couple of issues with this and special characters and newlines: http://codepad.org/rJNSQmGJ – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 06:42
Running this code didn't change the string at all for me. – TheKarateKid Oct 25 '16 at 18:41
Good, but incomplete. It is missing `$s= trim($s, '-');` after `preg_replace`. Also you should not use 1 letter variables for readability purpose. – ViliusL Feb 02 '21 at 20:44

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 13 '12 at 05:22

3

PHP has a function for making strings conform to URL standards:

urlencode($mrt1);

answered Dec 13 '12 at 05:22

sg-

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The OP may not want to use `+` (for design reasons...). That is a reasonable suggestion, though. – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 05:32
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Just this one single approach can have some (at least visually) horror-show outcomes: http://codepad.org/rJNSQmGJ So much for "pretty" urls... – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 06:45

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 25 '16 at 02:56

2

You ca try this function also..

function create_seo_link($text) {
    $letters = array(
        '–', '—', '"', '"', '"', '\'', '\'', '\'',
        '«', '»', '&', '÷', '>',    '<', '$', '/'
    );

    $text = str_replace($letters, " ", $text);
    $text = str_replace("&", "and", $text);
    $text = str_replace("?", "", $text);
    $text = strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $text));

    return ($text);
}

edited Nov 25 '16 at 02:56

Pang

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answered Dec 13 '12 at 05:26

Mrinmoy Ghoshal

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I don't get this at all. Regular expressions do *sometimes* make perfect sense. `;)` But, seeing your function name, is this from a software package or library? – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 05:33
no i have created it..@JaredFarrish – Mrinmoy Ghoshal Dec 13 '12 at 05:36
1

Take a look at answer for the question Hakre links to in his comment above. I would say that's perhaps a more comprehensive approach, if a bit impenetrable to read. – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 05:54
@JaredFarrish Got Ur Point. Thanks. – Mrinmoy Ghoshal Dec 13 '12 at 06:03
1

Some different demos: http://codepad.org/rJNSQmGJ – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 06:41
really nice function nslug()..@JaredFarrish – Mrinmoy Ghoshal Dec 13 '12 at 06:51

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 13 '12 at 05:18

0

str_replace() to change spaces to -, and strtolower() to change to lowercase.

$mrt1 = 'Zhongxiao Dunhua Sun';
$mrt1 = str_replace(' ','-',strtolower($mrt1));

answered Dec 13 '12 at 05:18

Sean

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I'm not quite sure this would cover all cases (such as special characters the OP might not want left in, like `*%$.?` etc.). It might not matter, but it is a big gap. – Jared Farrish Dec 13 '12 at 05:28
True, but based off his example, this simple example would work. If he has more stringent requirements, @leepowers' answer is a better solution. – Sean Dec 13 '12 at 05:31

Turning a name into a URL-friendly string in PHP?

4 Answers4