Turn URLs and @* into links

Question

I'm getting my latest tweets with HTTParty and Hashie like so.

tweet = Hashie::Mash.new HTTParty.get(http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/ethnt.json).first
puts tweet.text

I want to be able to turn every link (http://*.*) and usernames (@.) into links. What would the regex for both of these be, and how would I implement it?

Answer 1

def link_urls_and_users s

    #regexps
    url = /( |^)http:\/\/([^\s]*\.[^\s]*)( |$)/
    user = /@(\w+)/

    #replace @usernames with links to that user
    while s =~ user
        s.sub! "@#{$1}", "<a href='http://twitter.com/#{$1}' >#{$1}</a>"
    end

    #replace urls with links
    while s =~ url
        name = $2
        s.sub! /( |^)http:\/\/#{name}( |$)/, " <a href='http://#{name}' >#{name}</a> "
    end

     s

end


puts link_urls_and_users(tweet.text)

This works, so long as URLs are padded by spaces or are at the beginning and/or end of the tweet.