Convert URLs into HTML links using sed?

Question

I\'m wondering if it\'s possible (recommended might be the better word) to use sed to convert URLs into HTML hyperlinks in a document. Therefore, it would look for things li

Answer 1

While you could use sed, and I will typically only use sed if I need something that's write-only (that is, it only needs to work and doesn't need to be maintained).

I find the Python regular expression library to be more accessible (and gives the ability to add more powerful constructs).

import re
import sys

def href_repl(matcher):
    "replace the matched URL with a hyperlink"
    # here you could analyze the URL further and make exceptions, etc
    #  to how you did the substitution. For now, do a simple
    #  substitution.
    href = matcher.group(0)
    return '{href}'.format(**vars())

text = open(sys.argv[1]).read()
url_pattern = re.compile(re.escape('http://') + '[^ ]*')
sys.stdout.write(url_pattern.sub(href_repl, text))

Personally, I find that much easier to read and maintain.