my @urls = ('tp://www.foo.com/' , '://www.foo.com', 'http//:www.foo.com', 'www.foo.com', 'xxx.tv', 'http//:xxx.tv', 'tp:xx.tv'); foreach (@urls) { s/^(.*?)(\w+\.)/$2/; print "http://$_\n"; } __END__ prints: http://www.foo.com/ http://www.foo.com http://www.foo.com http://www.foo.com http://xxx.tv http://xxx.tv http://xx.tv