Shorten URL text automatically

Hello
I currently parse text using a regex that converts all URLs into links automatically

$text = ereg_replace("[[:alpha:]]+://[^<>[:space:]]+[[:alnum:]/]", "<a href=\"\\0\" target=\"_blank\">\\0</a>", $text);

Code (markup):

However what I would like, is for the text to appear as something like this: http://www.domain.com.../help.html

Basically making longer URLs output as shorter versions.
Can anyone help me doing this in a nice clean way?

Thanks

 

$text = /* text with URLs */;
$text = preg_replace_callback('~https?://[^\s\r\n"\'<>\!]+~i', 'shorten_urls', $text);

function shorten_urls(array $url)
{
    $url_maxlen = 35; // Max length of the displayed URL.

    if (strlen($url[0]) > $url_maxlen)
    {
        $offset1 = ceil(0.65 * $url_maxlen) - 2;
        $offset2 = ceil(0.30 * $url_maxlen) - 1;

        $urltext = substr($url[0], 0, $offset1) . '...' . substr($url[0], -$offset2);
    }
    else
    {
        $urltext = $url;
    }

    return "<a href=\"{$url[0]}\" title=\"{$url[0]}\">{$urltext}</a>";
}

PHP:

... untested, but it might actually work. (If not, you get the hint!)


Oh yes, and stop using these ugly ereg_* functions. They're deprecated and will be removed in PHP 6. Not to mention they're about 6 times slower than the preg_* functions.

 

I can't edit my post above anymore, but there's a small typo:

$urltext = $url;

PHP:

.... should read:

$urltext = $url[0];

PHP:

 

Thanks Nico thats great!!