This is the first of a few functions that'll linkify text with PHP. It's based on WordPress' make_clickable() 
function. If you would like to shorten a URL in addition to creating an active link, modify the beliefmedia_create_short() function as required. For truncating purposes, clients will likely want to use our own suite of tools.
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<?php
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/*
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Linkify a URL With PHP (Version 1)
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http://www.beliefmedia.com/code/php-snippets/linkify-url-php
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*/
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function beliefmedia_linkify($matches, $short = false) {
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$url = $matches[2];
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$url = beliefmedia_clean_url($url);
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if (empty($url)) return $matches[0];
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/* Truncate URL? */
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if ($short !== false) $url = beliefmedia_create_short($url);
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return "{$matches[1]}<a href='{$url}' target='_blank' rel="noopener noreferrer">{$url}</a>";
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}
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function beliefmedia_create_short($url, $length = '20') {
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if ($lengthurl > $length) $url = file_get_contents('http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=' . $url);
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return $url;
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}
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function beliefmedia_clean_url($url) {
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if ($url == '') return $url;
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/* If the URL doesn't appear to contain a scheme, presume http:// */
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if (strpos($url, ':') === false && substr( $url, 0, 1 ) != '/' && !preg_match( "|^[a-z0-9-]+?.php|i", $url ) ) $url = "http://{$url}";
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/* Replace ampersans and single quotes */
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return $url;
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}
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function beliefmedia_transform($text) {
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$text = " {$text}";
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$text = preg_replace_callback('#(?<=[\s>])(\()?([\w]+?://(?:[\w\\x80-\\xff\#$%&~/\-=?@\[\](+]|[.,;:](?![\s<])|(?(1)\)(?![\s<])|\)))*)#is', 'beliefmedia_linkify', $text);
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return $text;
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}
Usage is as follows:
Returns the following:
This is the first URL: http://www.beliefmedia.com/, and another: http://www.flight.org
Additional functions that serve a similar purpose are forthcoming.
