Simple function to parse inline Markdown links to HTML.

gistfile1.php

<?php

// PARSE INLINE MARKDOWN LINKS
function markdown_links($x) {
  preg_match_all('/\[(.*?)\]\((.*?)\)/', $x, $matches);
	if(!empty($matches)){
		foreach($matches[0] as $key => $match){
			$x_replace = '<a href="'.$matches[2][$key].'" target="_blank">'.$matches[1][$key].'</a>';
			$x = str_replace($matches[0][$key], $x_replace, $x);	
		}
	}
	return $x;
}

?>

Example usage:

 $text = "Follow me on [GitHub](https://github.com/JulianLaval)";

 $converted_text = markdown_links($text);
 // RESULT: $converted_text = 'Follow me on <a href="https://github.com/JulianLaval">GitHub</a>'