Converts any plain text URL strings into HTML formatted hyperlinks.

xslt-hyperlink-creator.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<!-- 
    Converts any plain text URL strings from a passage of text 
    inot HTML formatted hyperlinks.
-->

<xsl:template name="hyperlink">
    
    <!-- Input -->
    <xsl:param name="string" select="string()" />

    <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="contains($string, 'http://')">
            <xsl:variable name="http" select="http://" />
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:when test="contains($string, 'https://')">
            <xsl:variable name="http" select="https://" />
        </xsl:when>
    </xsl:choose>
    
    <!-- Vars -->
    <xsl:variable name="before" select="substring-before($string, $http)" />
    <xsl:variable name="after" select="substring-after($string, 'http://')" />
    <xsl:variable name="url" select="concat($http, substring-before($after, ' '))"/>
    <xsl:variable name="rest" select="substring-after($string, $url)" />

    <!-- Output -->
    <xsl:value-of select="$before"/>

    <xsl:choose>
        <!-- If the url is at then end, $rest doesn't work -->
        <xsl:when test="substring-after($url, $http) != ''">
            <a href="{$url}">
                <xsl:value-of select="$url" />
            </a>
            <xsl:call-template name="hyperlink">
                <xsl:with-param name="string" select="$rest"/>
            </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
            <a href="{$url}{$after}">
                <xsl:value-of select="$after" />
            </a>
        </xsl:otherwise>
    </xsl:choose>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>