How can PHP developers effectively integrate features like smilies into user input forms on a forum?

To integrate features like smilies into user input forms on a forum, PHP developers can create a mapping of smilies to their corresponding images and then replace the smilies in the user input with the corresponding image tags before displaying them on the forum. This can be achieved by using PHP's str_replace function to replace the smilies with the image tags. 

$smilies = array(
    ':)' => '<img src="smiley1.png" alt=":)" />',
    ':(' => '<img src="smiley2.png" alt=":(" />',
    ':D' => '<img src="smiley3.png" alt=":D" />'
);

$user_input = $_POST['user_input']; // Assuming user input is submitted via POST

foreach ($smilies as $smiley => $img_tag) {
    $user_input = str_replace($smiley, $img_tag, $user_input);
}

echo $user_input; // Display user input with smilies replaced by images

Keywords

PHP smilies user input forms integration forum

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