highlight multiple keywords in search

Question

i'm using this code to highlight search keywords:

function highlightWords($string, $word)
 {

        $string = str_replace($word, "<span class='highlight'>".$word."</span>", $string);
    /*** return the highlighted string ***/
    return $string;

 }

 ....

  $cQuote =  highlightWords(htmlspecialchars($row['cQuotes']), $search_result);

however, this highlights only one keyword. if the user enters more than one keyword, it will narrow down the search but no word is highlighted. how can i highlight more than one word?

Answer 1

Splits your search query up into words, then highlight each words separately.

It might work out better to perform the highlighting in javascript though. jQuery's "contains" selector will probably help avoid problems of replacing markup elements as you go...

http://api.jquery.com/contains-selector/

Answer 2

Assuming the words are entered as a space seperated string you can just use explode

$words = explode(' ', $term);

Although if you want to ensure there are not multiple spaces, you may want to remove them from the string first

$term = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', trim($term));
$words = explode(' ', $term);

You do then have to generate a replacement array

$highlighted = array();
foreach ( $words as $word ){
    $highlighted[] = "<span class='highlight'>".$word."</span>"
}

Then

str_replace($words, $highlighted, $string);

So putting it togther

function highlightWords($string, $term){
    $term = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', trim($term));
    $words = explode(' ', $term);

    $highlighted = array();
    foreach ( $words as $word ){
        $highlighted[] = "<span class='highlight'>".$word."</span>"
    }

    return str_replace($words, $highlighted, $string);
}

Answer 3

regular expressions is the way to go!

function highlight($text, $words) {
    preg_match_all('~\w+~', $words, $m);
    if(!$m)
        return $text;
    $re = '~\\b(' . implode('|', $m[0]) . ')\\b~';
    return preg_replace($re, '<b>$0</b>', $text);
}

$text = '
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
consequat.
';

$words = 'ipsum labore';

print highlight($text, $words);

To match in a case-insensitive manner, add 'i' to the regular expression

    $re = '~\\b(' . implode('|', $m[0]) . ')\\b~i';

NB: for non-enlish letters like "ä" the results may vary depending on the locale.