smiley.js

function replaceEmoticons(text) {
  var emoticons = {
    ':-)' : 'smile1.gif',
    ':)'  : 'smile2.gif',
    ':D'  : 'smile3.gif',
    ':-|'  : 'smile4.gif'
  }, url = "http://www.domain.com/", patterns = [],
     metachars = /[[\]{}()*+?.\\|^$\-,&#\s]/g;

  // build a regex pattern for each defined property
  for (var i in emoticons) {
    if (emoticons.hasOwnProperty(i)){ // escape metacharacters
      patterns.push('('+i.replace(metachars, "\\$&")+')');
    }
  }

  // build the regular expression and replace
  return text.replace(new RegExp(patterns.join('|'),'g'), function (match) {
    return typeof emoticons[match] != 'undefined' ?
           '<img src="'+url+emoticons[match]+'"/>' :
           match;
  });
}

replaceEmoticons('this is a simple test :-) :-| :D :)');