in reply to regex to identify http:// in html
For a quick hack, s{(http://\S+?)(\s+)}{<a href="$1">$1</a>$2} will do what you ask. The important thing to note is the \S+?, which makes the regex non-greedy, i.e. it'll match the minimum amount required for the regex to succeed, rather than the maximum amount, which is what \S+ or .* would do. I've also used \S (any non-space character), as it's best to avoid . where you can: see death to dot star.
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