How Can I Create URL-Friendly Slugs from Strings using PHP?

Creating URL-Friendly Slugs using PHP

When building web applications, it's often necessary to convert strings into URL-friendly formats known as slugs. For instance, a string like "Andrés Cortez" should be converted to "andres-cortez" for use in a URL.

To achieve this, a custom PHP function can be employed:

public static function slugify($text, string $divider = '-')
{
  // replace non letter or digits by divider
  $text = preg_replace('~[^\pL\d]+~u', $divider, $text);

  // transliterate
  $text = iconv('utf-8', 'us-ascii//TRANSLIT', $text);

  // remove unwanted characters
  $text = preg_replace('~[^-\w]+~', '', $text);

  // trim
  $text = trim($text, $divider);

  // remove duplicate divider
  $text = preg_replace('~-+~', $divider, $text);

  // lowercase
  $text = strtolower($text);

  if (empty($text)) {
    return 'n-a';
  }

  return $text;
}

This function utilizes a series of regular expressions and character conversions to transform the input string into a slug. It first replaces all non-alphanumeric characters with the specified divider. Then, it transliterates non-ASCII characters into their closest ASCII equivalents. Unwanted characters are removed, and the string is trimmed and converted to lowercase. Duplicate dividers are removed to ensure a clean slug.

By calling this slugify() function, developers can easily create slugs from Unicode strings, providing a straightforward solution for URL-friendly text in PHP applications.

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