Automatic Email Address Protection PHP / JavaScript
It is important to protect email addresses on websites from being harvested by spambots.
"Email spambots collect e-mail addresses from the Internet in order to build mailing lists for sending unsolicited e-mail, also known as spam. Such spambots are web crawlers that can gather e-mail addresses from Web sites, newsgroups, special-interest group (SIG) postings, and chat-room conversations. Because e-mail addresses have a distinctive format, spambots are easy to write. A number of legislators in the U.S. are reported to be devising laws that would outlaw the spambot." – Wikipedia
This is my method for automatically detecting email addresses and replacing them with a javascript that will disguise them from spambots. The script works in two stages one in javascript and the other in php.
First the javascript function that outputs the mailto link:
function sb_email(user,site){ document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' + user + '@' + site + '\">'); document.write(user + '@' + site + '<\/a>'); }
The function has 2 parameters "user" and "site", which are the two parts of the email address either side of the "@". This function can be called like so:
sb_email('joe','bloggs.com');
The second part is the php functions that recognise email addresses and replace them with the javascript function to disguise them:
//function to output the js function create_js ($matches){ $parts = explode ('@', substr ($matches[0], 1)); if(substr($parts[1],-1)=='.'){$parts[1]=substr($parts[1],0,-1); $parts[2]='.';} $str = $matches[1].'<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">'; $str .= 'sb_email("'.$parts[0].'", "'.$parts[1].'");'; $str .= '</script>'.$parts[2]; return $str; } $js_callback = "create_js "; //function to recognise emails function email_protect($text){ global $js_callback; $replace = '/([> ])[A-Z0-9._-]+@[A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9.-]{0,61}[A-Z0-9]\.[A-Z.]{2,6}/i'; $output = preg_replace_callback($replace, $js_callback, $text); return $output; }
The email_protect php function can be called on any text string like so:
echo email_protect($text);
It will automatically replace any email addresses in the text with the javascript, therefore hiding them from spambots.
obviously none of it gets through, but its still annoying having to delete it all. So, I have decided to take measures against it by implementing a few changes on my blog. I have installed the 
Works great - thank you!
[...] Version: 0.1 - License: n/a - Author: Sam Burge - Plugin Page - » Download [...]
Is there a newer version than 0.1? I upgraded to WordPress 2.6.1 and the Plugins area is telling me that there is a new version, but the new version links to:
GALLERY LIGHTBOX PLUGIN
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-25-gallery-lightbox-plugin/
Also, just an FYI, version 0.1 now conflicts with the Subscribe2 plugin.
Very handy little plug-in, works like a charm, thanks.
I’m experiencing a little weirdness, though. I downloaded it from your site. When I install it, it works fine but I get an alert telling me there’s a new version 1.3 (the code says “Version 0.1″) and the link to get the new version points at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-25-gallery-lightbox-plugin/ which is clearly wrong. The “Upgrade automatically” option doesn’t work either, with the error mentioning wp-25-gallery.
Since it works, the only reason I care is I don’t want the little orange flag over “Plugins” in my dashboard, but seems like something you’d want to know.
wordpress 2.5
not working for me, i made the two changes , name and email to the php file, verified the changes were saved in the php file, but it continues to send wordpress and wordpress@domain
????