Tutorial: Parsing text¶

Database fields¶

phpBB uses the following database fields where BBCode is allowed (forum description, forum rules, post content, …):

foo - Text itself
foo_bbcode_uid - a randomly generated unique identifier to mark the BBCodes and used for quicker parsing
foo_bbcode_bitfield - a bit field containing the information which bbcode is used in the text so only the relevant ones need to be loaded from the database. NOTE: No longer used in posts generated in phpBB 3.2+
foo_options - a bit field containing the information whether bbcode, smilies and magic urls are enabled (OPTION_FLAG_BBCODE, OPTION_FLAG_SMILIES and OPTION_FLAG_LINKS). Sometimes you will find this separated into enable_bbcode, enable_smilies and enable_magic_url

Column names will vary, replace foo with the respective column name (e.g. text, text_bbcode_uid, …).

Parsing text with BBCodes & smilies¶

Inserting text into DB¶

$text = $this->request->variable('text', '', true);
$uid = $bitfield = $options = ''; // will be modified by generate_text_for_storage
$allow_bbcode = $allow_urls = $allow_smilies = true;
generate_text_for_storage($text, $uid, $bitfield, $options, $allow_bbcode, $allow_urls, $allow_smilies);

$sql_ary = array(
    'text'              => $text,
    'bbcode_uid'        => $uid,
    'bbcode_bitfield'   => $bitfield,
    'bbcode_options'    => $options,
);

$sql = 'INSERT INTO ' . YOUR_TABLE . ' ' . $this->db->sql_build_array('INSERT', $sql_ary);
$this->db->sql_query($sql);

The above method uses the bbcode options database field which is used in many places instead of enable_smiles, enable_bbcode and enable_magic_url. Here is how to insert it into the database using the enable_smilies, enable_bbcode and enable_magic_url tables.

$text = $this->request->variable('text', '', true);
$uid = $bitfield = $options = ''; // will be modified by generate_text_for_storage
$allow_bbcode = $allow_urls = $allow_smilies = true;
generate_text_for_storage($text, $uid, $bitfield, $options, $allow_bbcode, $allow_urls, $allow_smilies);

$sql_ary = array(
    'text'              => $text,
    'bbcode_uid'        => $uid,
    'bbcode_bitfield'   => $bitfield,
    'enable_bbcode'     => $allow_bbcode,
    'enable_magic_url'  => $allow_urls,
    'enable_smilies'    => $allow_smilies,
);

$sql = 'INSERT INTO ' . YOUR_TABLE . ' ' . $this->db->sql_build_array('INSERT', $sql_ary);
$this->db->sql_query($sql);

Displaying text from DB¶

This example uses the bbcode_options field which is used in forums and groups description parsing:

$sql = 'SELECT text, bbcode_uid, bbcode_bitfield, bbcode_options
    FROM ' . YOUR_TABLE;
$result = $this->db->sql_query($sql);
$row = $this->db->sql_fetchrow($result);
$this->db->sql_freeresult($result);

$text = generate_text_for_display($row['text'], $row['bbcode_uid'], $row['bbcode_bitfield'], $row['bbcode_options']);

$this->template->assign_vars([
    'TEXT'  => $text,
]);

The next one uses the enable_bbcode, enable_smilies and enable_magic_url flags which can be used instead of the above method and is used in parsing posts:

$sql = 'SELECT text, bbcode_uid, bbcode_bitfield, enable_bbcode, enable_smilies, enable_magic_url
    FROM ' . YOUR_TABLE;
$result = $this->db->sql_query($sql);
$row = $this->db->sql_fetchrow($result);
$this->db->sql_freeresult($result);

$row['bbcode_options'] = (($row['enable_bbcode']) ? OPTION_FLAG_BBCODE : 0) +
    (($row['enable_smilies']) ? OPTION_FLAG_SMILIES : 0) +
    (($row['enable_magic_url']) ? OPTION_FLAG_LINKS : 0);
$text = generate_text_for_display($row['text'], $row['bbcode_uid'], $row['bbcode_bitfield'], $row['bbcode_options']);

$this->template->assign_vars([
    'TEXT'  => $text,
]);

Generating text for editing¶

$sql = 'SELECT text, bbcode_uid, bbcode_options
    FROM ' . YOUR_TABLE;
$result = $this->db->sql_query_limit($sql, 1);
$row = $this->db->sql_fetchrow($result);
$this->db->sql_freeresult($result);

$post_data = generate_text_for_edit($row['text'], $row['bbcode_uid'], $row['bbcode_options']);

$this->template->assign_vars([
    'POST_TEXT'         => $post_data['text'],
    'S_ALLOW_BBCODES'   => $post_data['allow_bbcode'],
    'S_ALLOW_SMILIES'   => $post_data['allow_smilies'],
    'S_ALLOW_URLS'      => $post_data['allow_urls'],
]);

Database fields for BBCode¶

The following column definitions are expected for BBCodes:

"text": [
    "MTEXT_UNI",
    "" // Default empty string
],
"bbcode_uid": [
    "VCHAR:8",
    "" // Default empty string
],
"bbcode_bitfield": [
    "VCHAR:255",
    "" // Default empty string
],
"bbcode_options": [
    "UINT:11",
    7 // Default all enabled
],