patBBCode in the works :: a programmer's best friend

What I did not like about the PEAR::HTML_BBCodeParser package was that to add a new tag, you have to build the regular expression to match your tag yourself. As I am not a regular expression expert, I decided that I needed a generic, easily extensible system - namely patBBCode.

So how does it work? By emulating a SAX-based BBCode parser (sponsored by our XML-Guru schst), patBBCode parses a string for BBCode tags and prepares the needed data like the attribute collection and content of the tag. This data is then processed by small filter classes that are mapped to a tag via an ini-based configuration file. So to add your own tags, you just have to create a small filter class that returns the needed content based on the tag's attributes and content, and add it to the list of known tags in the tag configuration file. No need to know anything about regular expressions!

If you want to have a look at the package (alpha!), you can download the latest CVS snapshot from snaps.php-tools.net, or browse the CVS repository via cvs.php-tools.net. As always, feel free to give us feedback!