Question

Has anybody used a good Java implementation of BBCode? I am looking at

1. javabbcode : nothing to see
2. kefir-bb : Listed as alpha
3. BBcode parser in JBoss source code.

Are there any better options?

Answer 1

The current version of KefirBB 0.6 is not listed as beta anymore. I find the KefirBB parser very easy to configure and extend with my own tags:

kefir-bb.sourceforge.net

(This is the best BBCode parser I’ve found so far)

I also found this code at fyhao.com, but it does protect you against incorrectly nested tags (thus not suitable for parsing user entered input):

    public static String bbcode(String text) {
        String html = text;

        Map<String,String> bbMap = new HashMap<String , String>();

        bbMap.put("(\r\n|\r|\n|\n\r)", "<br/>");
        bbMap.put("\\[b\\](.+?)\\[/b\\]", "<strong>$1</strong>");
        bbMap.put("\\[i\\](.+?)\\[/i\\]", "<span style='font-style:italic;'>$1</span>");
        bbMap.put("\\[u\\](.+?)\\[/u\\]", "<span style='text-decoration:underline;'>$1</span>");
        bbMap.put("\\[h1\\](.+?)\\[/h1\\]", "<h1>$1</h1>");
        bbMap.put("\\[h2\\](.+?)\\[/h2\\]", "<h2>$1</h2>");
        bbMap.put("\\[h3\\](.+?)\\[/h3\\]", "<h3>$1</h3>");
        bbMap.put("\\[h4\\](.+?)\\[/h4\\]", "<h4>$1</h4>");
        bbMap.put("\\[h5\\](.+?)\\[/h5\\]", "<h5>$1</h5>");
        bbMap.put("\\[h6\\](.+?)\\[/h6\\]", "<h6>$1</h6>");
        bbMap.put("\\[quote\\](.+?)\\[/quote\\]", "<blockquote>$1</blockquote>");
        bbMap.put("\\[p\\](.+?)\\[/p\\]", "<p>$1</p>");
        bbMap.put("\\[p=(.+?),(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/p\\]", "<p style='text-indent:$1px;line-height:$2%;'>$3</p>");
        bbMap.put("\\[center\\](.+?)\\[/center\\]", "<div align='center'>$1");
        bbMap.put("\\[align=(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/align\\]", "<div align='$1'>$2");
        bbMap.put("\\[color=(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/color\\]", "<span style='color:$1;'>$2</span>");
        bbMap.put("\\[size=(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/size\\]", "<span style='font-size:$1;'>$2</span>");
        bbMap.put("\\[img\\](.+?)\\[/img\\]", "<img src='$1' />");
        bbMap.put("\\[img=(.+?),(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/img\\]", "<img width='$1' height='$2' src='$3' />");
        bbMap.put("\\[email\\](.+?)\\[/email\\]", "<a href='mailto:$1'>$1</a>");
        bbMap.put("\\[email=(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/email\\]", "<a href='mailto:$1'>$2</a>");
        bbMap.put("\\[url\\](.+?)\\[/url\\]", "<a href='$1'>$1</a>");
        bbMap.put("\\[url=(.+?)\\](.+?)\\[/url\\]", "<a href='$1'>$2</a>");
        bbMap.put("\\[youtube\\](.+?)\\[/youtube\\]", "<object width='640' height='380'><param name='movie' value='http://www.youtube.com/v/$1'></param><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/$1' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='640' height='380'></embed></object>");
        bbMap.put("\\[video\\](.+?)\\[/video\\]", "<video src='$1' />");

        for (Map.Entry entry: bbMap.entrySet()) {
            html = html.replaceAll(entry.getKey().toString(), entry.getValue().toString());
        }

        return html;
    }

BTW javaBBcode is part of opensource project: JavaBB.