Question

Recently I saw that when I put the link in my profile it replaced it with the exact title of the question. So I want to know, how do they do it?

I am guessing that they do this by sending the link via ajax and then make a link header by php implode ,explode. Is this correct way/same way that Stack Overflow does this?

Answer 1

Suppose I am pasting the above link in the textarea like this

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12444652/how-to-make-a-link-system-link-stackoverw

This is what happens behind the scenes. A GET request is made to the below URL

http://api.stackexchange.com/2.0/questions/12444652?pagesize=30&key=6AU78DZ)GcdjNjAszYmTLQ((&filter=!6G7RPxWUNTleV&site=stackoverflow.com&callback=apiCallbacks[%22stackoverflow.com%22]&_=1347774461814

The response of that GET is

apiCallbacks["stackoverflow.com"]({"items":[{"question_id":12444652,"title":"How to make a link system link stackoverw"}]});

From that one could retrieve the title. Hope this helps.