Displaying URL's

[stephen_UK]

I have written a mysql database using PHP which uses a multi-field form to collect descriptive information about archaeological finds/features etc.

Some of the fields are text or medium text in length.

It is common when describing things to include references, which frequently now take the form of a url.

When entering the descriptive text is there a format where a url like:

http://www.arch.org/pdf/23432.pdf can be entered amongst the rest of the text so that without any intervention it will be displayed as a url link, when the record is displayed, or is it the case that the url would have to be saved in a dedicated field so that php code could load and display it correctly?

Thanks for you time

Stephen

[pritaeas]

Because you want to display the URL differently, I'd suggest replacing the link before outputting it, after retrieving it from the database.

[smantscheff]

MySQL does not have a URL field type which might handle the HTML formatting. You could write a MySQL function which replaces all URL-like text with HTML code. But it's easier done in PHP.

[stephen_UK]

Thanks for the info, I will have to try and find how it can be done using php.