Works for me:

my $line = <<'END'
<item name="pdf_link">
           <value>http://www.yahoo.com</value>

</item>
END
;
if($line=~m/(.*)(\<item name\=\"pdf_link\"\>\s*\<value\>)(.*)(\<\/valu
+e\>)(.*)/i){

    print "3: $3\n";
    
} else { print "No match\n"; }
__END__
3: http://www.yahoo.com
[download]

But as people have already pointed out, an XML parser is probably a more reliable bet!