PHP Program to Convert Title to URL Slug

Last Updated : 19 Jul, 2024
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In this article, we will see how to convert title sting to URL slug in PHP. URL strings are small letter strings concatenated with hyphens.

Examples:

Input: str = "Welcome to GFG"
Output: welcome-to-gfg
Input: str = How to Convert Title to URL Slug in PHP?
Output: how-to-convert-title-to-url-slug-in-php

There are three methods to convert a title to URL slug in PHP, these are:

Table of Content

Using str_replace() ans preg_replace() Methods

  • First, we will convert the string to lower case.
  • Replace the spaces with hyphens.
  • Remove the special characters.
  • Remove consecutive hyphens with single hyphen.
  • Remove the starting and ending hyphens.
  • Then Print the URL string.

Example:

PHP 
<?php 

function convertTitleToURL($str) { 
	
	// Convert string to lowercase 
	$str = strtolower($str); 
	
	// Replace the spaces with hyphens 
	$str = str_replace(' ', '-', $str); 
	
	// Remove the special characters 
	$str = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9\-]/', '', $str); 
	
	// Remove the consecutive hyphens 
	$str = preg_replace('/-+/', '-', $str); 
	
	// Trim hyphens from the beginning 
	// and ending of String 
	$str = trim($str, '-'); 
	
	return $str; 
} 

$str = "Welcome to GFG"; 
$slug = convertTitleToURL($str); 

echo $slug; 

?>

Output
welcome-to-gfg

Using Regular Expression (preg_replace() Method)

  • First, we will convert the string to lower case.
  • Use the regular expression to replace the white spaces and special characters with hyphens.
  • Remove the starting and ending hyphens.
  • Then Print the URL string.

Example:

PHP 
<?php 

function convertTitleToURL($str) { 
	
	// Convert string to lowercase 
	$str = strtolower($str); 
	
	// Replace special characters 
	// and spaces with hyphens 
	$str = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9]+/', '-', $str); 
	
	// Trim hyphens from the beginning 
	// and ending of String 
	$str = trim($str, '-'); 
	
	return $str; 
} 

$str = "Welcome to GFG"; 
$slug = convertTitleToURL($str); 

echo $slug; 

?>

Output
welcome-to-gfg

Using urlencode() Methods

  • First, we will convert the string to lower case.
  • Convert the string to URL code and replace the + symbols with hyphens ( - ).
  • Then Print the URL string.

Example:

PHP 
<?php 

function convertTitleToURL($str) { 
	
	// Convert string to lowercase 
	$str = strtolower($str); 
	
	// Convert String into URL Code 
	$str = urlencode($str); 
	
	// Replace URL encode with hyphon 
	$str = str_replace('+', '-', $str); 

	return $str; 
} 

$str = "Welcome to GFG"; 
$slug = convertTitleToURL($str); 

echo $slug; 

?>

Output
welcome-to-gfg

Using iconv() Method

This method ensures that special characters from different languages are properly handled and converted to their closest ASCII equivalents.

  1. First, we will convert the string to lower case.
  2. Convert special characters to their ASCII equivalents.
  3. Replace spaces and non-alphanumeric characters with hyphens.
  4. Remove consecutive hyphens.
  5. Trim hyphens from the beginning and ending of the string.
  6. Then print the URL string.

Example:

PHP 
<?php 

function convertTitleToURL($str) { 
    
    // Convert string to lowercase 
    $str = strtolower($str); 
    
    // Convert special characters to ASCII equivalents
    $str = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $str);
    
    // Replace non-alphanumeric characters with hyphens 
    $str = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9]+/', '-', $str); 
    
    // Remove consecutive hyphens 
    $str = preg_replace('/-+/', '-', $str); 
    
    // Trim hyphens from the beginning and ending of string 
    $str = trim($str, '-'); 
    
    return $str; 
} 

$str = "Welcome to GFG! This is an example.";
$slug = convertTitleToURL($str); 

echo $slug; 

?>

Output
welcome-to-gfg-this-is-an-example

Using strtok() Method

The strtok() method can be used to tokenize the string based on delimiters. It ensures that the words are correctly separated and can handle multiple spaces and special characters effectively.

Steps:

  • Convert the string to lower case.
  • Use strtok() to split the string into tokens based on spaces and special characters.
  • Collect the tokens into an array.
  • Join the array elements with hyphens.
  • Print the URL string.

Example:

PHP 
<?php
function slugifyStrtok($str) {
    // Convert to lower case
    $str = strtolower($str);
    // Use strtok() to split the string into tokens
    $token = strtok($str, " \t\n\r\0\x0B-._~:[]@!$&'()*+,;=");
    $tokens = [];
    while ($token !== false) {
        $tokens[] = $token;
        $token = strtok(" \t\n\r\0\x0B-._~:[]@!$&'()*+,;=");
    }
    // Join the array elements with hyphens
    return implode('-', $tokens);
}

$originalStr = "How to Convert Title to URL Slug in PHP?";
$slugifiedStr = slugifyStrtok($originalStr);

echo "Original String: " . $originalStr . PHP_EOL;
echo "Converted String: " . $slugifiedStr . PHP_EOL;
?>

Output:

Original String: How to Convert Title to URL Slug in PHP?
Converted String: how-to-convert-title-to-url-slug-in-php?



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