Converting wiki format to XHTML

Question

I have a database storing "wiki formatted" text which I would like to display in XHTML using PHP.

Here is an example output with all the wiki markup:

Default text
== Heading 1 ==
=== Heading 2 ===
==== Heading 3 ====
===== Heading 4 =====
====== Heading 5 ======
'''Bold'''
''Italic''
<s>Strikethrough</s>

* List item 1
* List item 2

# Numbered item 1
# Numbered item 2

[[Image:http://domain.com/image.png|Image name]]

[http://google.com Link text goes here]

> Blockquote

<source lang="language">Source code</source>

Is that fairly standard wiki syntax? Is there a fairly standard way of interpreting it with PHP?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Yes, that seems like a fairly standard wiki format. I've created several PHP wiki solutions using the PEAR package Text_Wiki. It does just what you want, and you can even expand it to support any custom syntax and translate according to any rule.

http://pear.php.net/package/Text_Wiki

Answer 2

It's going to depend very much on what language you are using to parse.

Client-side with Javascript?

Server Side with ASP or PHP?

Answer 3

MediaWiki is written in PHP and licensed under GPL. So you just could take the WikiText converter and use it.

Answer 4

I would say that the most standard wiki-like format around today is markdown. There are libraries available for almost any platform, including PHP.

Answer 5

I came up with a hack, but it breaks on a lot of things. Is this the best way forward?

PHP:

function wiki2html($text)
{
        $text = preg_replace('/&lt;source lang=&quot;(.*?)&quot;&gt;(.*?)&lt;\/source&gt;/', '<pre lang="$1">$2</pre>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/======(.*?)======/', '<h5>$1</h5>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/=====(.*?)=====/', '<h4>$1</h4>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/====(.*?)====/', '<h3>$1</h3>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/===(.*?)===/', '<h2>$1</h2>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/==(.*?)==/', '<h1>$1</h1>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace("/'''(.*?)'''/", '<strong>$1</strong>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace("/''(.*?)''/", '<em>$1</em>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/&lt;s&gt;(.*?)&lt;\/s&gt;/', '<strike>$1</strike>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/\[\[Image:(.*?)\|(.*?)\]\]/', '<img src="$1" alt="$2" title="$2" />', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/\[(.*?) (.*?)\]/', '<a href="$1" title="$2">$2</a>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/&gt;(.*?)\n/', '<blockquote>$1</blockquote>', $text);

        $text = preg_replace('/\* (.*?)\n/', '<ul><li>$1</li></ul>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/<\/ul><ul>/', '', $text);

        $text = preg_replace('/# (.*?)\n/', '<ol><li>$1</li></ol>', $text);
        $text = preg_replace('/<\/ol><ol>/', '', $text);

        $text = str_replace("\r\n\r\n", '</p><p>', $text);
        $text = str_replace("\r\n", '<br/>', $text);
        $text = '<p>'.$text.'</p>';
        return $text;
}

Input:

Default text
== Heading 1 ==
=== Heading 2 ===
==== Heading 3 ====
===== Heading 4 =====
====== Heading 5 ======
'''Bold'''
''Italic''
<s>Strikethrough</s>

* List item 1
* List item 2

# Numbered item 1
# Numbered item 2

[[Image:http://domain.com/image.png|Image name]]

[http://google.com Link text goes here]

> Blockquote

<source lang="language">Source code</source>

Output:

<p>
  Default text<br/>
  <h1> Heading 1 </h1><br/>
  <h2> Heading 2 </h2><br/>
  <h3> Heading 3 </h3><br/>
  <h4> Heading 4 </h4><br/>
  <h5> Heading 5 </h5><br/>
  <strong>Bold</strong><br/>
  <em>Italic</em><br/>
  <strike>Strikethrough</strike>
</p>

<p>
  <ul>
    <li>List item 1</li>
    <li>List item 2</li>
  </ul>
  <br/>
  <ol>
    <li>Numbered item 1</li>
    <li>Numbered item 2</li>
  </ol>
  <br/>
  <img src="http://domain.com/image.png" alt="Image name" title="Image name" />
</p>

<p>
  <a href="http://google.com" title="Link text goes here">Link text goes here</a>
</p>

<p>
  <blockquote> Blockquote</blockquote><br/>
  <pre lang="language">Source code</pre><br/>
</p>