README

EasySlugger is a fast PHP library to generate slugs, which allow to safely include any string as part of an URL. Slugs are commonly used for CMS, blogs and other content-related platforms.

Installation

Add this library as a dependency of your project using Composer:

$ cd your-project/
$ composer require javiereguiluz/easyslugger

Generating slugs

Most slugger libraries include a lot of settings to configure how the slugs are generated. EasySlugger uses a different approach to provide both a great performance and flexibility: it includes four different slugger classes!

• Slugger, fast slugs suited for most European languages.
• Utf8Slugger, UTF-8-compliant slugger suitable for any alphabet (including Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew languages). It requires PHP 5.4.0 or higher.
• SeoSlugger, advanced slugger that augments the strings before turning them into slugs. For instance, the string The product #3 costs $9.99 is turned into the-product-number-3-costs-9-dollars-99-cents.
• SeoUtf8Slugger, combines the Utf8Slugger and the SeoSlugger to augment and slugify any UTF-8 string.

All sluggers implement the SluggerInterface, which allows you to safely switch from one slugger to another in your projects.

Generating basic slugs

The easiest way to generate slugs is to use the slugify() method of the Slugger class:

use EasySlugger\Slugger;

$slug = Slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum');  // slug = lorem-ipsum

You can also instantiate the Slugger class to use it non-statically:

// PHP 5.4 or lower
use EasySlugger\Slugger;

$slugger = new Slugger();
$slug = $slugger->slugify('Lorem Ipsum'); // slug = lorem-ipsum

// PHP 5.5 or higher
$slugger = (new \EasySlugger\Slugger())->slugify('Lorem Ipsum');

Generating unique slugs

If you need to ensure the uniqueness of the slugs generated during the execution of your application, use the uniqueSlugify() method, which appends a random suffix to the slug:

use EasySlugger\Slugger;

$slug = Slugger::uniqueSlugify('Lorem Ipsum'); // slug = lorem-ipsum-a2b342f

Unique slugs are non-deterministic, meaning that the appended suffix is random and it will change in each application execution, even when using the same input string. If you want to append an autoincremental numeric suffix to the slugs, you'll need to develop your own custom solution.

Generating slugs for non-latin alphabets

If the strings contain characters belonging to non-latin alphabets such as Arabic, Hebrew and Japanese, you should use the Utf8Slugger class. This slugger requires PHP 5.4.0 or higher because it uses the built-in PHP transliterator:

use EasySlugger\Utf8Slugger;

$slug = Utf8Slugger::slugify('日本語');  // slug = ri-ben-yu
$slug = Utf8Slugger::slugify('العَرَبِيةُ‎‎');    // slug = alrbyt
$slug = Utf8Slugger::slugify('עברית');  // slug = bryt

Utf8Slugger also defines the uniqueSlugify() to generate unique slugs.

Generating SEO slugs

The SeoSlugger (and the related SeoUtf8Slugger) augments the strings before turning them into slugs. The conversions are related to numbers, currencies, email addresses and other common symbols:

use EasySlugger\SeoSlugger;

$slug = SeoSlugger::slugify('The price is $5.99');
// slug = the-price-is-5-dollars-99-cents

$slug = SeoSlugger::slugify('Use lorem@ipsum.com to get a 10% discount');
// slug = use-lorem-at-ipsum-dot-com-to-get-a-10-percent-discount

$slug = SeoSlugger::slugify('Gravity = 9.81 m/s2');
// slug = gravity-equals-9-dot-81-m-s2

SeoSlugger and SeoUtf8Slugger also define the uniqueSlugify() to generate unique slugs.

Configuration options

The only configuration option available is the separator character (or string) used to separate each of the slug parts. First, you can set this parameter globally using the class constructor:

use EasySlugger\Slugger;

$slugger = new Slugger();
$slug = $slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum'); // slug = lorem-ipsum

$slugger = new Slugger('_');
$slug = $slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum'); // slug = lorem_ipsum

$slugger = new Slugger('');
$slug = $slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum'); // slug = loremipsum

You can also set this parameter as the second optional argument of the slugify() and uniqueSlugify() methods. This parameter always overrides any global parameter set by the class:

use EasySlugger\Slugger;

$slugger = new Slugger();
$slug = Slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum', '_'); // slug = lorem_ipsum
$slug = Slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum', '');  // slug = loremipsum

$slugger = new Slugger('+');
$slug = $slugger::slugify('Lorem Ipsum', '_'); // slug = lorem_ipsum

License

This library is licensed under the MIT license.

Tests

The library is fully unit tested. If you have PHPUnit installed, execute phpunit command to run the complete test suite:

$ cd easyslugger/
$ composer install
$ phpunit