Supported Links:

The following Regex supports these Flickr links and embed code snippets.

Normal URL : http://www.flickr.com/photos/gambort/6501997531/
Short URL :  http://flic.kr/p/aUyrkH
Embed :      >a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gambort/6501997531/"
             title="Skyrim black dragon by gambort, on Flickr"><img
	     src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6501997531_80aa9da91a.jpg"
             width="500" height="334" alt="Skyrim black dragon"></a>

****Short Code id needs to be decoded and replaced with the full photo ID****

Again, I’ve broken it up the Regex and commented each line.

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$regexstr = '~
# Match Flickr link and embed code
(?:<a [^>]*href=")?		# If a tag match up to first quote of src
(?:				# Group Flickr url
	https?:\/\/		# Either http or https
	(?:[\w]+\.)*		# Optional subdomains
	(?:               		# Group host alternatives.
		flic\.kr     	# Either flic.kr
	        	| flickr\.com	# or flickr.com 
	)			# End Host Group
	(?:\/photos)?		# Optional video sub directory
	\/[^\/]+\/		# Slash and stuff before Id
	([0-9a-zA-Z]+)	# $1: PHOTO_ID is numeric
	[^\s]*			# Not a space
)				# End group
"?				# Match end quote if part of src
(?:.*></a>)?			# Match the end of the a tag
~ix';

Usage Example:

This example is more involved than the previous posts because we need to make an API call to get the image URL after we get the Flickr Photo_ID. I’ve also included a Base58 decode function incase the url is the short flic.kr style link.

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function ParseForFlickr($string){
	$regexstr = <<REGEX FROM ABOVE>>;
 
	require_once('phpFlickr.php');
	$f = new phpFlickr("<<Flickr API Key>>");
 
	preg_match_all($regexstr, $string, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
 
	//Loop results		
	foreach ($matches as $val) {	
		//If short code decode it     
		if (strpos($val[0], "flic.kr") !== false) {
			$val[1] = $this->flickrDecode($val[1]);
		} 
 
		//make flickr api call with photo id
		$pinfo = $f->photos_getSizes($val[1]);
		//Array 3 is the medium 500 size
		$imgstr = ' <p><img class="upostimg" src="'.$pinfo[3]['source'].'" /></p> ';
		$string = str_replace($val[0],$imgstr,$string);
	}
	return $string;
}
 
function flickrDecode($num){
	$alphabet = "123456789abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ";
 
	$decoded = 0;
	$multi = 1;
	while (strlen($num) > 0) {
		$digit = $num[strlen($num)-1];
		$decoded += $multi * strpos($alphabet, $digit);
		$multi = $multi * strlen($alphabet);
		$num = substr($num, 0, -1);
	}
 
	return $decoded;
}

For more Regex see Regex YouTube Parser or Regex Vimeo Parser

Supported Links:

The following Regex supports these Vimeo links and embed code snippets.

Normal URL: http://vimeo.com/9669721
Group URL:   http://vimeo.com/groups/tvc/videos/32626014
New Embed:   <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/9669721?title=0
             &byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="400"
             height="225" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen
             mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen > </iframe >

**** Doesn't handle Vimeo's old embed code ****

Again, I’ve broken it up the Regex and commented each line.

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$regexstr = '~
 # Match Vimeo link and embed code
(?:<iframe [^>]*src=")? 	# If iframe match up to first quote of src
(?:				# Group vimeo url
	https?:\/\/		# Either http or https
	(?:[\w]+\.)*		# Optional subdomains
	vimeo\.com		# Match vimeo.com
	(?:[\/\w]*\/videos?)?	# Optional video sub directory this handles groups links also
	\/			# Slash before Id
	([0-9]+)		# $1: VIDEO_ID is numeric
	[^\s]*			# Not a space
)				# End group
"?				# Match end quote if part of src
(?:[^>]*></iframe>)?		# Match the end of the iframe
(?:<p>.*</p>)?		        # Match any title information stuff
~ix';

Usage Example:

This example function takes an input string and uses the above Regex to parse off the Vimeo Video_ID ($1) and add it to $iframestr to create a standard embed code.

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function ParsePostVimeo($string){
	$regexstr = <<REGEX FROM ABOVE>>;
	$iframestr = ' <p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/$1?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" width="500" height="284" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></iframe></p> ';
 
	return preg_replace($regexstr, $iframestr, $string);
}

For more Regex see Regex YouTube Parser

By limiting the loops to only the required dimensions and processing everything only once, I was able to get the execution time from 2.5 minutes down to 6 seconds. 6 seconds is still far to long for an on demand call. Luckily the cube metadata doesn’t change frequently. Allowing me to cache the data. Taking the call from 6 seconds down to 200 milliseconds, on all subsequent calls. This is the caching I implemented for the metadata.

Created global private static instance of the HttpRuntime Cache. Allowing anyone calling the service to get the same data from the cache.

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private static System.Web.Caching.Cache _cache = HttpRuntime.Cache;

Next, create a key to use for your cached object. Depending on the data your caching this may need to be more unique than below. Get the object from your global cache using the key. If a non-null comes out of the cache return your cached object.

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string key = typeof(<object to cache>).Name;
 
var list = _cache.Get(key) as <object to cache>;
if (list != null)
{
      return list;
}

If no object comes out of the cache do your normal data processing. Just before you return your data add it to the cache. Here I’m caching for one day at normal priority.

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  _cache.Add(key,<object to cache>, null, DateTime.Now.AddDays(1), System.Web.Caching.Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, System.Web.Caching.CacheItemPriority.Normal, null);

That’s it! The first call will populate the cache and all other calls will pull from the cache. Super simple and an excellent way to improve your service call performance.

Good Luck!

Because SharePoint ignores common web standards and uses Ids with periods I had to escape the Id. CSS will treat the periods as a class declaration if they are not escaped.

To use this simply add the code snippet to your main CSS file or your master page in SharePoint. If this code snippet doesn’t work for you verify that the Id’s are the same in your SharePoint installation.

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#ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_UploadDocumentSection_ctl03_UploadMultipleLink, 
#Ribbon\.Documents\.New\.AddDocument\.Menu\.Upload\.UploadMultiple-Menu32
{
         display: none;	
}

First we need to set an initParams in our ASPX Page:

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<div id="silverlightControlHost">
	<object width="100%" height="100%" type="application/x-silverlight-2" data="data:application/x-silverlight-2,">
		<param name="source" value="ClientBin/initParamsDemo.xap" /> 
		<param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" /> 
		<param name="background" value="white" /> 
		<param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="3.0.40818.0" /> 
		<param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" />
		<param name="initParams" value="ServiceURL=http://localhost:8000/service1.svc" />
		< a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&amp;v=3.0.40818.0"> 
			<img style="border-style: none;" src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108181" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" /> 
		</a>
	</object>
</div>

Next we need to create our static dictionary in App.xaml.cs and assign the dictionary in the startup event.

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public static IDictionary<string, string> AppParams;
 
private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)
{
	this.RootVisual = new MainPage();
	AppParams = e.InitParams;
}

When you want to access your param you simply use grab if from the dictionary using the key.

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 App.AppParams["ServiceURL"]

We can’t always trust that the initParam is set you should check to make sure it’s in the dictionary before using it.

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 if (App.AppParams.ContainsKey("ServiceURL"))
{
	// Do Something with: App.AppParams["ServiceURL"]
}
else
{
	// Handle error</code></em></span>
}

Most of Extended Results’ software is developed in Silverlight, which gives me a chance to hone my Silverlight skill set. I eagerly await this new chapter in my career.

Below is a sample php function that expands URLs. As you can see the function is extremely simple and only takes two lines of code (the rest of the code is a use example). I hope large sites will adopt similar functionality before novice users become accustomed to blindly clicking obfuscated links.

<?php
  $url = “http://bit.ly/4t9IYV”;
$fullURL = expandURL($url);
  echo “Short URL: $url”;
  echo “Original URL:”.$fullURL;

  function expandURL( $url )
  {
  $fullURL = get_headers($url,1);
  return $fullURL['Location'];
 }
?>