Redcloth extend with emoticons filter

Question

What would be a good way to implement emoticons/smiley's in a simple messaging system? I came out on red cloth as a valuable solution.

The messages will be saved in the DB like ;), :) ;( * like described here but this is old: http://flip.netzbeben.de/2008/07/smilies-in-rails-using-redcloth/ I try that any comments on that solution in safety etc?

UPDATE: Created a helper method , this one works

  def emoticons(text)

emoticons = { ":)" => "<img src='/assets/emoticons/smile.gif' class='emoticon'>",
              ":(" => "<img src='/assets/emoticons/cry.gif' class='emoticon'>"
            }

[emoticons.keys, emoticons.values].transpose.each do |search, replace|
  text.gsub!(search, replace)
end

return raw text

end

Any way to more improve this? the replacement works although the

Answer 1

This

emoticons = {":)" => "[happy/]", ":(" => "[sad/]"}
text = "test :) :("
[emoticons.keys, emoticons.values].transpose.each do |search, replace|
  text.gsub!(search, replace)
end
p text

will output

test [happy/] [sad/]

you can play with gsub to get HTML output instead of pseudo BB code