#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my @urls = ('tp://www.foo.com/' , '://www.foo.com', 'http//:www.foo.com', 'www.foo.com'); foreach (@urls) { s/^.*?www/www/; print "http://$_\n"; } __END__ prints: http://www.foo.com/ http://www.foo.com http://www.foo.com http://www.foo.com