Question

Let’s say i have:

$string = '2Pac - Dear Mama';

and the db like this:

id - some number
artist_name - 2Pac
alternative_name - Tupac
artist_slug - 2pac

How to transform the string to something like:

<a href="//example.com/artist/2pac/">2Pac</a> - Dear Mama

even if the $string would be:

$string = 'Tupac - Dear Mama';

transform it to:

<a href="//example.com/artist/2pac/">Tupac</a> - Dear Mama

Can somebody help me? Thanks in advance.

// later edit

I already use this function but i was wondering how to check if the artist has more names and keep the same page

function artist_name($title){ global $site_url;
$words = explode("-", $title); $result = array();
foreach ($words as $word){
$word = trim($word);
$res = mysql_query("SELECT `artist_name` FROM `artists` WHERE `artist_name` = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($word) . "' LIMIT 0, 1;");
if (mysql_num_rows($res) > 0){$result[] = '<a href="'.$site_url.'artist/'.clean_slug_function($word).'/" title="'.$word.'">'.$word.'</a>';}
else{$result[] = $word;}}
$result = implode($result, " - ");
return $result;}

// i’ve done it like this:

function artist_name($title){ global $site_url;
$words = explode("-", $title); $result = array();
foreach ($words as $word){
$word = trim($word);
$sql = dbquery("SELECT `artist_slug` FROM `artists` WHERE `artist_name` = '".mysql_real_escape_string($word)."' OR `alternative_name` = '".mysql_real_escape_string($word)."' LIMIT 0, 1;");
while($row = dbarray($sql)){$artist_slug = $row['artist_slug'];}
if (mysql_num_rows($sql) > 0){$result[] = '<a href="'.$site_url.'artist/'.clean_slug_function($artist_slug).'/" title="'.$word.'">'.$word.'</a>';}
else{$result[] = $word;}}
$result = implode($result, " - ");
return $result;}

Example:

for

$title = 'Tupac - Dear Mama';
echo artist_name($title);

the result will be

<a href="http://example.com/artist/2pac/" title="Tupac">Tupac</a> - Dear Mama

*notice 2pac url slug vs. Tupac (not 2Pac) name

Answer 1

1.
” – ” can be used as delimiter to divide the string in 2 parts. Contents of the string are put into an array.
More on explode function – on php.net

$string = 'Tupac - Dear Mama';
$string2 = explode(' - ',$string);
echo "<a href='//example.com/artist/2pac/'>" . $string2[0] . "</a> - " . $string2[1];

2.
I assume you have 2 tables, one with artists, and one with songs.

artists:

• id
• artist_name
• alternative_name
• artist_slug

songs:

• id
• artistid
• title

Code:

$query = "SELECT * FROM artists, songs WHERE songid = 1 AND artists.id = songs.artistid";    
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result) or die(mysql_error());
echo "<a href='//example.com/artist/" . $row['artist_name'] . "/'>" . $row['artist_name'] . "</a> - " . $row['title'];

3.

$res = mysql_query("SELECT `artist_name` FROM `artists` WHERE `artist_name` = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($word) . "' OR alternative_name = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($word) . "' LIMIT 0, 1;");