I was recently asked if I could automatically turn website text (ex: www.google.com ) into HTML hyperlinks. My first thought was ah CRAP! I also wondered why they could not use the link tool in the editor, but they asked so I delivered. With about 5 minutes on Google, I found the perfect solution that worked for me.
Mind you I was working in C# for this, but since it is a regular expression solution; it will apply to virtually any language. The one change that I had made from the original code was to add in a piece that also auto-linked when the text included “http://www.”. You may or may not want the extra addition that I had made.