drupal: standard way for creating a slug from a string

Question

A slug on this context is a string that its safe to use as an identifier, on urls or css. For example, if you have this string:

I'd like to eat at McRunchies!

Its slug would be:

i-d-like-to-eat-at-mcrunchies

I want to know whether there's a standard way of building such strings on Drupal (or php functions available from drupal). More precisely, inside a Drupal theme.

Context: I'm modifying a drupal theme so the html of the nodes it generates include their taxonomy terms as css classes on their containing div. Trouble is, some of those terms' names aren't valid css class names. I need to "slugify" them.

I've read that some people simply do this:

str_replace(" ", "-", $term->name)

This isn't really a enough for me. It doesn't replace uppercase letters with downcase, but more importantly, doesn't replace non-ascii characters (like à or é) by their ascii equivalents. It also doesn't remove "separator strings" from begining and end.

Is there a function in drupal 6 (or the php libs) that provides a way to slugify a string, and can be used on a template.php file of a drupal theme?

Answer 1

For Drupal 8/9 you can use Html::getClass

$slugify = Html::getClass('A @ Stríng-that n+eeds cónvert');

Don't forget to include the namespace when needed inside module

use Drupal\Component\Utility\Html;

Answer 2

I ended up using the slug function explained here (at the end of the article, you have to click in order to see the source code).

This does what I need and a couple things more, without needing to include external modules and the like.

Pasting the code below for easy future reference:

/**
 * Calculate a slug with a maximum length for a string.
 *
 * @param $string
 *   The string you want to calculate a slug for.
 * @param $length
 *   The maximum length the slug can have.
 * @return
 *   A string representing the slug
 */
function slug($string, $length = -1, $separator = '-') {
  // transliterate
  $string = transliterate($string);
 
  // lowercase
  $string = strtolower($string);
 
  // replace non alphanumeric and non underscore charachters by separator
  $string = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9]/i', $separator, $string);
 
  // replace multiple occurences of separator by one instance
  $string = preg_replace('/'. preg_quote($separator) .'['. preg_quote($separator) .']*/', $separator, $string);
 
  // cut off to maximum length
  if ($length > -1 && strlen($string) > $length) {
    $string = substr($string, 0, $length);
  }
 
  // remove separator from start and end of string
  $string = preg_replace('/'. preg_quote($separator) .'$/', '', $string);
  $string = preg_replace('/^'. preg_quote($separator) .'/', '', $string);
 
  return $string;
}
 
/**
 * Transliterate a given string.
 *
 * @param $string
 *   The string you want to transliterate.
 * @return
 *   A string representing the transliterated version of the input string.
 */
function transliterate($string) {
  static $charmap;
  if (!$charmap) {
    $charmap = array(
      // Decompositions for Latin-1 Supplement
      chr(195) . chr(128) => 'A', chr(195) . chr(129) => 'A',
      chr(195) . chr(130) => 'A', chr(195) . chr(131) => 'A',
      chr(195) . chr(132) => 'A', chr(195) . chr(133) => 'A',
      chr(195) . chr(135) => 'C', chr(195) . chr(136) => 'E',
      chr(195) . chr(137) => 'E', chr(195) . chr(138) => 'E',
      chr(195) . chr(139) => 'E', chr(195) . chr(140) => 'I',
      chr(195) . chr(141) => 'I', chr(195) . chr(142) => 'I',
      chr(195) . chr(143) => 'I', chr(195) . chr(145) => 'N',
      chr(195) . chr(146) => 'O', chr(195) . chr(147) => 'O',
      chr(195) . chr(148) => 'O', chr(195) . chr(149) => 'O',
      chr(195) . chr(150) => 'O', chr(195) . chr(153) => 'U',
      chr(195) . chr(154) => 'U', chr(195) . chr(155) => 'U',
      chr(195) . chr(156) => 'U', chr(195) . chr(157) => 'Y',
      chr(195) . chr(159) => 's', chr(195) . chr(160) => 'a',
      chr(195) . chr(161) => 'a', chr(195) . chr(162) => 'a',
      chr(195) . chr(163) => 'a', chr(195) . chr(164) => 'a',
      chr(195) . chr(165) => 'a', chr(195) . chr(167) => 'c',
      chr(195) . chr(168) => 'e', chr(195) . chr(169) => 'e',
      chr(195) . chr(170) => 'e', chr(195) . chr(171) => 'e',
      chr(195) . chr(172) => 'i', chr(195) . chr(173) => 'i',
      chr(195) . chr(174) => 'i', chr(195) . chr(175) => 'i',
      chr(195) . chr(177) => 'n', chr(195) . chr(178) => 'o',
      chr(195) . chr(179) => 'o', chr(195) . chr(180) => 'o',
      chr(195) . chr(181) => 'o', chr(195) . chr(182) => 'o',
      chr(195) . chr(182) => 'o', chr(195) . chr(185) => 'u',
      chr(195) . chr(186) => 'u', chr(195) . chr(187) => 'u',
      chr(195) . chr(188) => 'u', chr(195) . chr(189) => 'y',
      chr(195) . chr(191) => 'y',
      // Decompositions for Latin Extended-A
      chr(196) . chr(128) => 'A', chr(196) . chr(129) => 'a',
      chr(196) . chr(130) => 'A', chr(196) . chr(131) => 'a',
      chr(196) . chr(132) => 'A', chr(196) . chr(133) => 'a',
      chr(196) . chr(134) => 'C', chr(196) . chr(135) => 'c',
      chr(196) . chr(136) => 'C', chr(196) . chr(137) => 'c',
      chr(196) . chr(138) => 'C', chr(196) . chr(139) => 'c',
      chr(196) . chr(140) => 'C', chr(196) . chr(141) => 'c',
      chr(196) . chr(142) => 'D', chr(196) . chr(143) => 'd',
      chr(196) . chr(144) => 'D', chr(196) . chr(145) => 'd',
      chr(196) . chr(146) => 'E', chr(196) . chr(147) => 'e',
      chr(196) . chr(148) => 'E', chr(196) . chr(149) => 'e',
      chr(196) . chr(150) => 'E', chr(196) . chr(151) => 'e',
      chr(196) . chr(152) => 'E', chr(196) . chr(153) => 'e',
      chr(196) . chr(154) => 'E', chr(196) . chr(155) => 'e',
      chr(196) . chr(156) => 'G', chr(196) . chr(157) => 'g',
      chr(196) . chr(158) => 'G', chr(196) . chr(159) => 'g',
      chr(196) . chr(160) => 'G', chr(196) . chr(161) => 'g',
      chr(196) . chr(162) => 'G', chr(196) . chr(163) => 'g',
      chr(196) . chr(164) => 'H', chr(196) . chr(165) => 'h',
      chr(196) . chr(166) => 'H', chr(196) . chr(167) => 'h',
      chr(196) . chr(168) => 'I', chr(196) . chr(169) => 'i',
      chr(196) . chr(170) => 'I', chr(196) . chr(171) => 'i',
      chr(196) . chr(172) => 'I', chr(196) . chr(173) => 'i',
      chr(196) . chr(174) => 'I', chr(196) . chr(175) => 'i',
      chr(196) . chr(176) => 'I', chr(196) . chr(177) => 'i',
      chr(196) . chr(178) => 'IJ', chr(196) . chr(179) => 'ij',
      chr(196) . chr(180) => 'J', chr(196) . chr(181) => 'j',
      chr(196) . chr(182) => 'K', chr(196) . chr(183) => 'k',
      chr(196) . chr(184) => 'k', chr(196) . chr(185) => 'L',
      chr(196) . chr(186) => 'l', chr(196) . chr(187) => 'L',
      chr(196) . chr(188) => 'l', chr(196) . chr(189) => 'L',
      chr(196) . chr(190) => 'l', chr(196) . chr(191) => 'L',
      chr(197) . chr(128) => 'l', chr(197) . chr(129) => 'L',
      chr(197) . chr(130) => 'l', chr(197) . chr(131) => 'N',
      chr(197) . chr(132) => 'n', chr(197) . chr(133) => 'N',
      chr(197) . chr(134) => 'n', chr(197) . chr(135) => 'N',
      chr(197) . chr(136) => 'n', chr(197) . chr(137) => 'N',
      chr(197) . chr(138) => 'n', chr(197) . chr(139) => 'N',
      chr(197) . chr(140) => 'O', chr(197) . chr(141) => 'o',
      chr(197) . chr(142) => 'O', chr(197) . chr(143) => 'o',
      chr(197) . chr(144) => 'O', chr(197) . chr(145) => 'o',
      chr(197) . chr(146) => 'OE', chr(197) . chr(147) => 'oe',
      chr(197) . chr(148) => 'R', chr(197) . chr(149) => 'r',
      chr(197) . chr(150) => 'R', chr(197) . chr(151) => 'r',
      chr(197) . chr(152) => 'R', chr(197) . chr(153) => 'r',
      chr(197) . chr(154) => 'S', chr(197) . chr(155) => 's',
      chr(197) . chr(156) => 'S', chr(197) . chr(157) => 's',
      chr(197) . chr(158) => 'S', chr(197) . chr(159) => 's',
      chr(197) . chr(160) => 'S', chr(197) . chr(161) => 's',
      chr(197) . chr(162) => 'T', chr(197) . chr(163) => 't',
      chr(197) . chr(164) => 'T', chr(197) . chr(165) => 't',
      chr(197) . chr(166) => 'T', chr(197) . chr(167) => 't',
      chr(197) . chr(168) => 'U', chr(197) . chr(169) => 'u',
      chr(197) . chr(170) => 'U', chr(197) . chr(171) => 'u',
      chr(197) . chr(172) => 'U', chr(197) . chr(173) => 'u',
      chr(197) . chr(174) => 'U', chr(197) . chr(175) => 'u',
      chr(197) . chr(176) => 'U', chr(197) . chr(177) => 'u',
      chr(197) . chr(178) => 'U', chr(197) . chr(179) => 'u',
      chr(197) . chr(180) => 'W', chr(197) . chr(181) => 'w',
      chr(197) . chr(182) => 'Y', chr(197) . chr(183) => 'y',
      chr(197) . chr(184) => 'Y', chr(197) . chr(185) => 'Z',
      chr(197) . chr(186) => 'z', chr(197) . chr(187) => 'Z',
      chr(197) . chr(188) => 'z', chr(197) . chr(189) => 'Z',
      chr(197) . chr(190) => 'z', chr(197) . chr(191) => 's',
      // Euro Sign
      chr(226) . chr(130) . chr(172) => 'E'
    );
  }
 
  // transliterate
  return strtr($string, $charmap);
}
 
function is_slug($str) {
  return $str == slug($str);
}