use strict;
my $str = 'not feeling well today :/ check out this link <a href="http://example.com">http://example.com</a>';
my $regex = qr/(?:<[^\/]*?.*?<\/.*?>)|(:\/)/p;
my $subst = 'xxxxxxxxx';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html