MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo! ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

First, your check for the "Links" directory is a bit awkward, we shouldn't have to bail if the directory already exists:

my $dir = 'Links';
if (-d $dir) {
   chdir $dir or die "can't chdir: $!";
}
else {
   mkdir $dir or die "can't mkdir: $!";
}
[download]

open FILEIN, "urls.txt" or die "Could not open file $!";

while(<FILEIN>) {
   chomp;
   ...
}
[download]

Next, pull in the URI::Find, Config::IniHash and File::Basename CPAN modules to ease our burden. At this point, however, the skeleton of your script changes, so here is my version complete:

use strict;
use warnings;

use URI::Find;
use Config::IniHash;
use File::Basename;

use vars qw( @FOUND );
my $dir  = 'Links';
my $file = 'urls.txt';

unless (-d $dir) {
   mkdir $dir or die "can't mkdir: $!";
}

open FILEIN, $file or die "can't open $file:  $!";
my $urls = do {local $/; <FILEIN>};

my $finder = URI::Find->new(\&found);
$finder->find(\$urls);  

for (@FOUND) {
   my $hash = {
      DEFAULT => { BASEURL => $_ },
      InternetShortcut => { URL => $_, Modified => 0 },
   }; 
   my $file = basename($_,'.*');
   $file =~ s/(\.\w+)+/\.url/;
   WriteINI("$dir/\u$file", $hash);
}

sub found {
   my($uri, $orig_uri) = @_;  
   push @FOUND,$orig_uri;
}
[download]

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

The basename + substitution business doesn't seem to make any sense. The doc says basename quotes any metacharacters in the suffix(es), so that line is looking for a literal dot star at the end of the filename - rather unlikely, even if we have a URL to begin with. The substitution will replace the first repeated sequence of one dot followed by any number of word characters by .url (whose dot needs no quoting since it's on the right hand side of the substitution anyway). That sequence does not necessarily have to be what terminates the string. Taking a ponderous guess at the purpose of the hooha, I bid URI.

And for some more Perlishness, use the diamond operator instead of explicitly opening a file. With lots fewer temporaries:

use strict;
use warnings;

use URI;
use URI::Find;
use Config::IniHash;
use File::Basename;
use File::Spec::Functions qw(catfile);

my $dir  = 'Links';

unless (-d $dir) {
    mkdir $dir or die "can't mkdir($dir): $!";
}

URI::Find->new(\do {local $/; <> })->find(sub {
    my($uri, $orig_uri) = @_;  
    WriteINI(catfile($dir, uc URI->new($uri)->host), {
        DEFAULT => { BASEURL => $uri },
        InternetShortcut => { URL => $uri, Modified => 0 },
    });
});
[download]

Makeshifts last the longest.

"The basename + substitution business doesn't seem to make any sense."

I thought it made sense ... i just thought it to be a but i now see that it is a horrible way to do it! ;) I knew there had to be a better way, and what you have is soooo much better. Thanks Aristotle.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Thank you for the comments and suggestions, however I was already starting to work on a similar version that uses the TK module. I would look to your code carefully to examined it in more details later. Thank you.