BBCode

BBCode or Bulletin Board Code is a lightweight markup language used to format posts in many message boards. The available tags are usually indicated by square brackets ([ ]) surrounding a keyword, and they are parsed by the message board system before being translated into a markup language that web browsers understand—usually HTML or XHTML.

BBCode was first introduced in 1998 by the messageboard software Ultimate Bulletin Board (UBB).

Tags

BBCode	Example HTML	Rendering
[b]bolded text[/b]	<b>bolded text</b>, <strong>bolded text</strong> or <span style="font-weight: bold;">bolded text</span>	bolded text
[i]italicized text[/i]	<i>italicized text</i>, <em>italicized text</em> or <span style="font-style: italic;">italicized text</span>	italicized text
[u]underlined text[/u]	<u>underlined text</u>, <ins>underlined text</ins> or <span style="text-decoration: underline;">underlined text</span>	underlined text
[s]strikethrough text[/s]	<s>strikethrough text</s>, <del>strikethrough text</del> or <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">strikethrough text</span>	strikethrough text
[url]http://example.org[/url]	<a href="http://example.org">http://example.org</a>	http://example.org
[url=http://example.com]Example[/url]	<a href="http://example.com">Example</a>	Example
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Go-home.svg/100px-Go-home.svg.png[/img]	<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Go-home.svg/100px-Go-home.svg.png" alt="" />
[quote="author"]quoted text[/quote] (including optional author)	<blockquote><p>quoted text</p></blockquote> (usually implemented in more advanced ways)	To quote: quoted text
[code]monospaced text[/code]	<pre>monospaced text</pre>	monospaced text
[style size="15px"]Large Text[/style] (The unit of measurement varies with each BBCode variant and could represent pixels, points, or relative HTML sizes.)	<span style="font-size:15px">Large Text</span> or <font size="(+,-)x">Different text-size</font> (you can set + or - and x is a number representing pixels	Large Text
[style color="red"]Red Text[/style] or [style color=#FF0000]Red Text[/style] or [color=#FF0000]Red Text[/color] (Both HTML color names and hexadecimal color values are generally supported, although on some boards, you must omit the # from selecting a hexadecimal color.)	<font color="#FF0000">Red Text</font>, <font color="red">Red Text</font>, <span style="color:#FF0000;">Red Text</span>, <span style="color:red;">Red Text</span>	Red Text
:) [:-)] this would be another way to use the [img]url_img[/img] and must be pre-configured for the forum administrator (And other emoticons, depending on the variant. Most BBCodes do not enclose emoticons in square brackets, leading to frequent accidental usage)	<img src="Face-smile.svg" alt=":-)">	(Specific image and size vary)
[list] [*]Entry 1 [*]Entry 2 [/list] Some message boards do not need the square brackets around the markers, e.g.: [list] *Entry 1 *Entry 2 [/list] [1] (many variants for li and /li, list types (unordered and ordered, with different bullets or counter formats), etc.)	<ul><li>Entry 1</li><li>Entry 2</li></ul>	Entry 1 Entry 2
[table] [tr] [td]table data[/td] [/tr] [/table] (some variants for thead, rules, etc.)	<table><tr><td>table data</td></tr></table>	table data

Implementation

BBCode is typically implemented by applying a series of regular expression string-replace operations upon the input. Because regular expressions are limited in analyzing the structure of text input, this has the artifact that any non-hierarchical BBCode input will be transformed into invalid non-hierarchical HTML without error.

Applying traditional parsing techniques is made difficult by ambiguities in the markup, such as in [quote=[b]text[/b][/quote], where the input can either be interpreted as "text" quoted from someone called "[b", or the bolded text "text" surrounded by "[quote=" and "[/quote]", i.e. "[quote=text[/quote]".

References

1. ↑ BOINC Project Forums et al.

Links

Any2Bb.com - Rich-text (and HTML) to BbCode online converter