php - Get URL from shortcode tag

I am running a wordpress site and I need the correct regex syntax to get a URL from some shortcode that is returned inside the_content().

When I use the_content(), it will return something like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam nulla enim, euismod ut pharetra nec, commodo a augue. Etiam sit amet nibh mauris, eu ornare purus. Vestibulum sed sem enim, sit amet congue leo. 

[video mp4=<<insert video url here>> poster=<<insert imgae placeholder url>>]

How can I get just the video mp4 URL?

I am running a wordpress site and I need the correct regex syntax to get a URL from some shortcode that is returned inside the_content().

When I use the_content(), it will return something like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam nulla enim, euismod ut pharetra nec, commodo a augue. Etiam sit amet nibh mauris, eu ornare purus. Vestibulum sed sem enim, sit amet congue leo. 

[video mp4=<<insert video url here>> poster=<<insert imgae placeholder url>>]

How can I get just the video mp4 URL?

• php
• shortcode
• the-content
• regex

Share Improve this question edited Jan 16, 2013 at 0:03 shea 5,67244 gold badges3939 silver badges6262 bronze badges asked Nov 17, 2012 at 5:28 Timothy BassettTimothy Bassett 1111 bronze badge 1

• This isn't a WordPress question, IMHO. If reworded, it could be though. – Dan Commented Jan 16, 2013 at 0:09

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3 Answers 3

Sorted by: Reset to default 3

There's no need to use regex for this. WordPress has a Shortcode API to do this work for you.

That codex page includes one of my favorite codex code snippets:

function bartag_func( $atts ) {
    extract( shortcode_atts( array(
        'foo' => 'something',
        'bar' => 'something else',
    ), $atts ) );

    ...

Right at the start of the function registering the shortcode it does the following:

• take the user-submitted shortcodes and fill them in with defaults if they aren't provided
• takes the $atts argument and turn each valued into a variable (e.g. $foo, $bar, etc.)
  • For you, you'd get $mp4 and $poster

Catch the mp4 url with this:

<?php
    $text = get_the_content(); //untested with get_the_content()
    preg_match_all("\bmp4="(.+)\b", $text, $matches);
    var_dump($matches[0]);
?>

Eg. [video mp4="http://somevideo/abc"], would output:

http://somevideo/abc

This is my Gist, the example in it works for me, but results might differ depending on $text.

You can use substring and strpos to extract this

$spos = strpos($getContent,"mp4=");
if($spos) {
$spos = $spos+4;//4 for four charactars mp4= 
$epos = strpos($getContent,' ',$spos) - $spos;
$url = substr($getContent,$spos,$epos);
echo $url;
}