The twitter plugin has just been upgraded to (optionally) search for links in the twitter text and activate them as link.

So I thought I'd share the linkify code.

String.prototype.linkify = function() {
  return this.replace(/[A-Za-z]+:\/\/[A-Za-z0-9-_]+\.[A-Za-z0-9-_:% \?\/.=]+[^\.,\)\s*$]/g, function(m) {
    return m.link(m);
  });
};

Short and sweet - will return a string with the URLs as links. Note that if the linkify function encounters a real link, it will break the link - ideally use this code with text you know may contain a plain text link.

For example, assuming status is an element on the page, and twitter.text is our text to search for links within:

status.innerHTML = twitter.text.linkify();

The function has been tested in IE7, Firefox 2, Safari 2 and Opera 9. It has also been tested with domains with ports, paths and query strings.

I could see this being turned in to a bookmarklet to scan the current page to enable links, for instance in a forum where the link has been pasted in and not been converted (though the regex would need a tweak, or something altogether smarter may be required).

Let me know if you have any questions or feedback in case of mistakes.

You should follow me on Twitter here I'll tweet about JavaScript, HTML 5 and other such gems (amongst usual tweet-splurges)