Creates Link Even Though Keyword Is Inside Link

I’ve tracked this down to the regular expression used.

Line 148 of aal_engine.php

$reg = '/(?!(?:[^<\[]+[>\]]|[^>\]]+<\/a>|[^>\]]+<\/h.>|[^>\]]+<\/script*>))\b($name)\b/ims'. $langsupport .'U';

It needs to also search for any closing tag prior to the </a> tag, and I think this would help. Here’s my modification, which has worked for me:

$reg = '/(?!(?:[^<\[]+[>\]]|[^>]+<\/[^>]+><\/a>|[^>\]]+<\/a>|[^>\]]+<\/h.>|[^>\]]+<\/script*>))\b($name)\b/ims'. $langsupport .'U';

Also, I’m not sure the purpose of the $reg_post variable. It isn’t used anywhere else in the code as far as I can tell.

This is on the latest version, 5.3.2.3.

Edit: I think it could be simplified like this:

$reg = '/(?!(?:[^<\[]+[>\]]|[^>\]]+(?:<\/[^>]+>)?<\/a>|[^>\]]+<\/h.>|[^>\]]+<\/script*>))\b($name)\b/ims'. $langsupport .'U';

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Brandon Olivares.

Hello.

Thank you for the support and help. I will test your code on my test sites and if it is working as expected I will update it.

Many thanks for the help.

Hello.

Thank you for the help you’be give. I added your code into the plugin and I think it should work right now.

Thanks so much.

Something else I noticed, not sure if you already fixed this or not, but if I have a link like:

<a href="https://example.com/"><em>Book Title</em> by [author]</a>

If the Book Title is one of my auto-links, then it’ll double link it as well. Hope that makes sense.

Please update to the latest version and see if it is working well right now.

Just did, and you can see the results here.

It still double links it.

Hello.

I’ve used the code you provided. Will check to see if I can make this work right.