Youtube API - Extract video ID

Question

I am coding a functionality that allows users to enter a Youtube video URL. I would like to extract the video ID from these urls.

Does Youtube API support some kind of function where I pass the link and it gives the video ID in return. Or do I have to parse the string myself?

I am using PHP ... I would appreciate any pointers / code samples in this regard.

Thanks

Answer 1

Here is an example function that uses a regular expression to extract the youtube ID from a URL:

/**  * get youtube video ID from URL  *  * @param string $url  * @return string Youtube video id or FALSE if none found.   */ function youtube_id_from_url($url) {     $pattern =          '%^# Match any youtube URL         (?:https?://)?  # Optional scheme. Either http or https         (?:www\.)?      # Optional www subdomain         (?:             # Group host alternatives           youtu\.be/    # Either youtu.be,         | youtube\.com  # or youtube.com           (?:           # Group path alternatives             /embed/     # Either /embed/           | /v/         # or /v/           | /watch\?v=  # or /watch\?v=           )             # End path alternatives.         )               # End host alternatives.         ([\w-]{10,12})  # Allow 10-12 for 11 char youtube id.         $%x'         ;     $result = preg_match($pattern, $url, $matches);     if ($result) {         return $matches[1];     }     return false; }  echo youtube_id_from_url('http://youtu.be/NLqAF9hrVbY'); # NLqAF9hrVbY 

It's an adoption of the answer from a similar question.

---

It's not directly the API you're looking for but probably helpful. Youtube has an oembed service:

$url = 'http://youtu.be/NLqAF9hrVbY'; var_dump(json_decode(file_get_contents(sprintf('http://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=%s&format=json', urlencode($url))))); 

Which provides some more meta-information about the URL:

object(stdClass)#1 (13) {   ["provider_url"]=>   string(23) "http://www.youtube.com/"   ["title"]=>   string(63) "Hang Gliding: 3 Flights in 8 Days at Northside Point of the Mtn"   ["html"]=>   string(411) "<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NLqAF9hrVbY?version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NLqAF9hrVbY?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>"   ["author_name"]=>   string(11) "widgewunner"   ["height"]=>   int(344)   ["thumbnail_width"]=>   int(480)   ["width"]=>   int(425)   ["version"]=>   string(3) "1.0"   ["author_url"]=>   string(39) "http://www.youtube.com/user/widgewunner"   ["provider_name"]=>   string(7) "YouTube"   ["thumbnail_url"]=>   string(48) "http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/NLqAF9hrVbY/hqdefault.jpg"   ["type"]=>   string(5) "video"   ["thumbnail_height"]=>   int(360) } 

But the ID is not a direct part of the response. However it might contain the information you're looking for and it might be useful to validate the youtube URL.