Is it possible to write reg.expression for such a replace?

[Dasty]

My problem:

My users will write some text into <textarea> area. All I want to do with javascript is to take that textarea.value and replace all url links there with regular <a href> and then put whole text (with replaced urls) into another div.

Let's show it on example:

User will write sentence:

"This is my site http://www.try.org/see.html and I would like to replace it"

and I want my javascript to replace all urls this way:

"This is my site <A HREF="http://www.try.org/see.html">http://www.try.org/see.html</A> and I would like to raplce it"

Is it possible to make such a replacement with regular expression? (Yes, I can solve such a problem just by splitting string by words and test each word if it is not link) But I really want to know if it is doable by just .replace() function.

Thanks ...

[acoder]

I assume you know how to match a URL. Use parentheses around the reg. exp. for capturing. Then use $1 to refer to the captured match, e.g. the replacement could be <a href="$1">$1</a>.

[gits]

i just came out the following way:

var s  = 'This is my site http://www.try.org/see.html and I would like to replace it';
var ma = s.match(/(http[:/\w.]+)/)[1];
var li = '<a href="' + ma + '">' + ma + '</a>';
 
var new_text = s.replace(s1[1], li);
 
alert(new_text);

kind regards

[Dasty]

Thanks. I really love you guys.

I ended up with this:

mystr.replace(/((https?|ftp):\/\/[^\s]+)/g, '<a href="$1">$1</a>');

Which is enough for my needs.

[acoder]

No problem. Glad it helped.