Entry

How can I translate preformatted text to HTML code in PHP?

Mar 21st, 2001 10:08
Hardy Pottinger, Matt Gregory, Jonas Larsson,

There are several functions in PHP which allow you to convert symbols 
like the < and > to < and > as well as other html specific 
functions.  
(Please refer to http://www.php.net/manual/html/ref.strings.html )
In order to turn other text into html you have a lot of work ahead of 
you.  There is some talk among the developers of PHP to include some 
HTML formating functions. (for instance char * rtftohtml(char *rtf)).  
There is a lot of work involved in completing that and other functions 
like it however, so I would be surprised if you will see it in the 
first release of Zend (PHP4).
If you wish to write your own function to do this, all I can give you 
is a little push in the right direction:
Step 1: Decide on a common format for the file or strings you wish to 
convert.  (For instance RTF)
Step 2: Decide on common converters for each font size, color, string 
positioning, and all other format characteristics of the file type you 
are importing.
Step 3: Sit down and pound out all the conversion functions.  This will 
take you the better part of a week to finish, no matter how fast you 
code.
Step 4: Publish your code on the web so the rest of us won't have to do 
it!!!!!!!!
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If you'd like a shortcut to getting some of this hard work done, check 
out wvWare (http://wvware.sourceforge.net/) and the Wotsit's Format 
programmer's resource page (http://www.wotsit.org/).