Geek Alert!

• Views: 1,217

I’m pretty clueless when it comes to regular expressions, although I’m finally beginning to learn how to use them effectively. Here’s my latest problem, for which any suggestions from regex experts would be greatly appreciated.

Occasionally someone will post a comment containing a very long string of unbroken characters, which causes the comments area to expand, and thoroughly wrecks the display. I’d like to have a regular expression (PHP style) that checks comments for long strings, inserts spaces as appropriate (say, on a 40-character boundary), yet leaves any long strings inside HTML tags alone (because hyperlinks can be longer without causing a problem).

Any solutions, oh mighty hordes of regex-savvy lizardoids?

UPDATE: Thanks to all for the suggestions and offers to help; reader Doug Stewart found a piece of code at php.net that solves the problem nicely. Here’s the final result, which breaks any word longer than 40 characters by inserting a space, but ignores long words inside HTML tags:

$wrap_at = 40;
$htmltext = stripslashes (preg_replace (‘%(\s*)([^>]{‘.$wrap_at.’,})(<|$)%e’, “’\1’.wordwrap(‘\2’, ‘”.$wrap_at.”’, ’ ‘, 1).’\3’”, $htmltext));

Jump to top

Create a PageThis is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go.
Or... you can just click this button to open the Pages posting window right away.
Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
LGF User's Guide RSS Feeds

Help support Little Green Footballs!

Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled.

Donate with
PayPal
Cash.app
Recent PagesClick to refresh
A Water War Is Brewing Between the U.S. And Mexico. Here’s Why A water dispute between the United States and Mexico that goes back decades is turning increasingly urgent in Texas communities that rely on the Rio Grande. Their leaders are now demanding the Mexican government either share water or face ...
Cheechako
Yesterday
Views: 58 • Comments: 0 • Rating: 0
Harper’s Magazine: Slippery Slope - How Private Equity Shapes a Ski Town …Big Sky stands apart for other reasons. The obvious distinction is the Yellowstone Club, a private resort hidden in the mountains above the community that Justin Farrell, a professor of sociology at Yale and the author of Billionaire Wilderness, ...
teleskiguy
2 days ago
Views: 272 • Comments: 0 • Rating: 2