Shorten URL Help

Is there a better way or better function to use to shorten URL's?

		function shrink_url( $link, $limit = 20, $dots = 3 )
		{
			if (strlen($link) < 20)
				return $link;
			else
				return sprintf('%s%s%s', substr( $link, 0, $limit ), str_pad('.', $dots, '.' ), substr( $link, strlen( $link ) - 6 ) ); 
		}	

PHP:

For example, when the code above is implemented, it changes the following:

djchristopherjames.com --> djchristopherjames.c...es.com
parishiltonvideosonline.com --> parishiltonvideosonl...ne.com
bayareadrivingschoolls.com --> bayareadrivingschool...ls.com
fightdepression.info --> fightdepression.info...n.info

As you can see, the URL it changes it into isn't correct. Hope someone can help. Thanks.

 

function cutUrl($string, $limit = 20)
{
    $pad = '---';    
    $ext = substr($string, -4, 4);
    
    if (strlen($string) > ($limit - (strlen($pad) + strlen($ext))) 
        && $limit > (strlen($pad) + strlen($ext))) {
        $string = substr($string, 0, ($limit - (strlen($pad) + strlen($ext)))) . $pad . $ext;
    }
    
    return $string;
}


$string = 'bayareadrivingschoolls.com';

echo cutUrl($string, 15);     //  bayaread---.com

PHP:

 

Thanks, I tried that but still not working correctly.

Here are a few examples that you can see its not right:

wiiarcade.com --> wiiarcad---.com
ps44free.com --> ps44free---.com

Of course it worked for the longer ones but these shorter ones its messed up.

 

<?php
	function shrink_url($link, $limit = 20, $dots = 3) {
		return strlen($link) > $limit ? substr($link, 0, $limit - (strlen($link) - strpos($link, ".")) - 1) . str_pad('', $dots, ".", STR_PAD_LEFT) . substr($link, strpos($link, ".") - 1, (strlen($link) - strpos($link, ".")) + 1) : $link; 
	}
	echo shrink_url("lksdjflkjsadlkfjlksdjflkasdjflk.com", 20, 3);
	echo "<br>" . shrink_url("djchristopherjames.com", 20, 3);
?>

PHP:

There are two examples at the bottom there, here's what the output is:
lksdjflkjsadlkf...k.com
djchristopherja...s.com

 

Why are you truncating the small url's? I can understand if it's really long. But why the short url's? what is the benefit?

The code I posted will work just fine for what your asking. You'll have to call the function for each url, and
you'll also have to pass a length value. If you want to truncate a 10 character url, that's strange, but works fine.

echo cutUrl('wiiarcade.com', 10);   // wii---.com

PHP:

the output string length will match the number you pass in...

 

I can't put the URL in the function and a number for each. It's pulling 500 names from a database and using the function to shorten the long ones, so therefore I can't specify the number for each, just like you did " 10 " for wiiarcade.

 

so cut them all in half...

foreach ($result as $url) {
    echo cutUrl($url, round(strlen($url) / 2));
}

PHP:

 

I'm not wanting to cut them all in half. I just want to trim the long ones and make them smaller.

 

Ok, your a bit confusing =)

You can accomplish this by:

foreach ($result as &$url) {
    if (strlen($url) > $someLengthThatIsTooLong) {
        $url = cutUrl($url, $newLengthThatIsNotTooLong);
    }
}

PHP:

 

Sorry I'm confusing, but I thought I was pretty straight forward.

Thanks for the new code but I'm not getting it right.

I keep getting an error, "Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()".

Here's some code that may help:

Right now I just have, $domshrink = $domain[domain];

And then:

<td title=\"$domain[description]\" nowrap>" . ($domain['issite'] ? "<a href=\"http://www.dayonlinesolutions.com/go/$dom\" title=\"$domain[description]\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"./templates/images/site.png\" alt=\"Go to site for $domain[description]\" /></a> " : '') . "<a href=\"./go/$dom\" alt=\"Visit $domain[domain]\" title=\"Visit $domain[domain]\" target=\"_blank\"/><font color=black>$domshrink</font></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>

The results are shown here --> http://www.dayonlinesolutions.com/domains.php?sort=pagerank&soption=DESC <-- this type of URL is what I'm wanting.

 

thanks
...

 

Did you not even look at the one I showed you? It works perfectly.

 

Yeah must have missed that, sorry.

I just added it. It's better but still shortening some that don't really need to be.

For example:

buy-electric-cars.com --> buy-electric-ca...s.com (replaced the R with 3 dots)
prisonbreakforum.info --> prisonbreakfor...m.info (replaced the U with 3 dots)

So in those cases, it actually increased the length of each. Anyway to fix that?

 

It's fixable.

 

How do I do it?