Your regexp looks like how you might accomplish the task using sed(1), capture strings in perl are referenced as $n in the substitution - where n is 1..9.

Your regexp is capturing everything from the 'http' string, hence your regexp: 

s/(http.*)/<a href=\"\1\">\1<\/a>/;

[download]
should read: 
s/(http\S+)/<a href="$1">$1<\/a>/;

[download]
In that way, the regexp will capture everything from the 'http' string to (but not including) the next whitespace char.

See perlre &/or perlretut.

A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))

In reply to Re: Reg expression to replace URLs with Anchor tags in Tweets by Bloodnok
in thread Reg expression to replace URLs with Anchor tags in Tweets by halfbaked

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