Sure it can be done. But why bother when the modules are there to make your life easier?

LWP::Simple, HTML::Parser (version 2) and HTML::LinkExtor are all pure-Perl modules, so if you want to know how to so it, just look at the source for these modules.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

European Perl Conference - Sept 22/24 2000, ICA, London
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>