Formatting Phone Numbers/Web Addresses with PHP?

[jrotunda85]

Is there anyway to format Phone Numbers and/or Web Address PRIOR to inserting them into the database? For example, let's say a user puts one of the following telephone numbers into the box:

[phone]
777-111-2222
777.111.2222
7771112222

I would like these to be stored in the database as:

[phone]

Similarly, with web addresses if the user puts something like:

www.domain.com
domain.com
http://domain.com
http://www.domain.com

I wanted it to be stored in the database as:

http://www.domain.com

Any ideas?

[smantscheff]

Use preg_replace() to match and format the values supplied by users.
Strip the phone numbers of any non-numeric characters first. Apply

$number = preg_replace( '/[^0-9]/', '', $number );
$number = preg_replace( '/([0-9]{3})([0-9]{3})([0-9]{4})/', '($1) $2-$3', $number );

Likewise for the domain.

[jrotunda85]

Use preg_replace() to match and format the values supplied by users.
Strip the phone numbers of any non-numeric characters first. Apply

$number = preg_replace( '/[^0-9]/', '', $number );
$number = preg_replace( '/([0-9]{3})([0-9]{3})([0-9]{4})/', '($1) $2-$3', $number );

Likewise for the domain.

Worked perfectly, thanks for the help. Could I also use preg_replace for the web addresses or would that be more difficult considering we don't know how many characters are in the domain name?

Just a bit of code I had a go at. It's not as clean as preg_replace though. I'm not bright enough to pretend I understand it. The code below works with all the examples in the array.

<?php
$url_array = array('http://www.diafol.org','http://diafol.org','www.diafol.org','diafol.org','ftp://www.diafol.org','https://www.diafol.org/index.php?id=1#anchor','diafol.org/index.php?id=1&id2=678#anchor');
foreach($url_array as $url){
	$host = ""; $path = ""; $query = ""; $fragment = "";
	$parse_url = parse_url($url);
	$schema = (isset($parse_url['scheme'])) ? $parse_url['scheme'] . "://" : "http://";
	if(isset($parse_url['host'])){
		$host = (strpos($parse_url['host'],"www.") !== false) ? $parse_url['host'] : "www." . $parse_url['host'];
	}else{
		$path = (strpos($parse_url['path'],"www.") !== false) ? $parse_url['path'] : "www." . $parse_url['path'];
	}
        if(isset($parse_url['query']))$query = "?" . $parse_url['query'];
	if(isset($parse_url['fragment']))$fragment = "#" . $parse_url['fragment'];
	echo "URL = $url but CODE gives: " . $schema . $host . $path . $query . $fragment . "<br />";
}
?>

You obviously don't need all that:

<?php
        $url = ....;
	//$host = ""; $path = ""; $query = ""; $fragment = ""; don't need
	$parse_url = parse_url($url);
	$schema = (isset($parse_url['scheme'])) ? $parse_url['scheme'] . "://" : "http://";
	if(isset($parse_url['host'])){
		$host = (strpos($parse_url['host'],"www.") !== false) ? $parse_url['host'] : "www." . $parse_url['host'];
	}else{
		$path = (strpos($parse_url['path'],"www.") !== false) ? $parse_url['path'] : "www." . $parse_url['path'];
	}
        if(isset($parse_url['query']))$query = "?" . $parse_url['query'];
	if(isset($parse_url['fragment']))$fragment = "#" . $parse_url['fragment'];
	$standard_url = $schema . $host . $path . $query . $fragment;
?>

Can't help thinking that smant's gonna come back with a two-line snippet that's gonna make me look like a mook. :)

[smantscheff]

It depends on how regular your input is. In your example, domain names consist of lower-char strings with dots in between with an optional protocol name:

$sample = " 1word www.domain.com no period domain.com period. http://domain.com what else? http://www.domain.com ";
if (preg_match_all( '~([a-z]+://)?(([a-z0-9]+\.)+([a-z]{2}[a-z]?[a-z]?))~', $sample, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER))
  print_r( $matches );

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => [url]www.domain.com[/url]
            [1] =>
            [2] => [url]www.domain.com[/url]
            [3] => domain.
            [4] => com
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => domain.com
            [1] =>
            [2] => domain.com
            [3] => domain.
            [4] => com
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => [url]http://domain.com[/url]
            [1] => http://
            [2] => domain.com
            [3] => domain.
            [4] => com
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [0] => [url]http://www.domain.com[/url]
            [1] => http://
            [2] => [url]www.domain.com[/url]
            [3] => domain.
            [4] => com
        )

)

// hey ardav, what's a mook?

Hah, hah hah, I hate you :)

Mook? Dunno - sounds like some flavour of idiot you'd find in a gangster movie. Like I mentioned, I'm not bright enough to understand preg/regex - gives me a nosebleed. Anyway, can your code transform various url formats to jr's standard? I can see that it detects certain parts. I'd use that myself!

[smantscheff]

Yes, if preg can identify elements it can also transform them to any standard. My code does not provide for some more exotic url forms like username/password elements, and it does not tackle the query string, if present. But with an additional bracket you can at least catch the standard subdomain, domain and top level domain parts:

preg_match_all( '~([a-z]+://)?(([a-z0-9]+\.)?([a-z0-9]+\.)+([a-z]{2}[a-z]?[a-z]?))~', $sample, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER)

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => [url]www.domain.com[/url]
            [1] =>
            [2] => [url]www.domain.com[/url]
            [3] => www.
            [4] => domain.
            [5] => com
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => domain.com
            [1] =>
            [2] => domain.com
            [3] =>
            [4] => domain.
            [5] => com
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => [url]http://domain.com[/url]
            [1] => http://
            [2] => domain.com
            [3] =>
            [4] => domain.
            [5] => com
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [0] => [url]http://www.domain.com[/url]
            [1] => http://
            [2] => [url]www.domain.com[/url]
            [3] => www.
            [4] => domain.
            [5] => com
        )

)

AH OK, got you. So you need to mess about with the $matches variable? Would it be possible to do a one-stop shop with something like preg_replace? Just asking out of curiosity more than anything.

[smantscheff]

Of course. With preg_replace you can synthesize any expressions which you could catch with preg_match. E.g. for formatting domain names, you could use:

echo preg_replace( '~([a-z]+://)?(([a-z0-9]+\.)?([a-z0-9]+\.)+([a-z]{2}[a-z]?[a-z]?))~s', '<a href="http://$2">$2</a>', $sample);
//Result: 1word <a href="http://www.domain.com">www.domain.com</a> no period <a href="http://domain.com">domain.com</a> period. <a href="http://domain.com">domain.com</a> what else? <a href="http://www.domain.com">www.domain.com</a>

THanks smant, after I stem the flow from both nostrils, I shall endeavour to decipher yon perlified gibberish. Perhaps, I will have another crack at regex - but understanding it well may be beyond my genetic potential!

Thanks again.