find links from plain text and link them.

find_links

// find links from plain text and link them.
function find_links($text) {
	$reg_exUrl = "/(http|https|ftp|ftps)\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?/"; // The Regular Expression filter
	if(preg_match($reg_exUrl, $text, $url)) { // Check if there is a url in the text
		$url[0] = rtrim($url[0], ','); // remove trailing comma if there is one.
		$text = preg_replace($reg_exUrl, "<a href=".$url[0]." target='_blank'>{$url[0]}</a> ", $text); // make the urls hyper links
		return $text;
	} else {
       return $text; // if no urls in the text just return the text
	}
}

// usage
$text = "text string with a normal url http://google.com in it";
$text = find_links($text);
echo $text;