$re = '~(?<!["\'>])(http|ftp)(s)?://((?:[-\w]+\.)+\S+[^,.\s])~';
$str = 'http://www.example.com
https://www.example.com
www.example.com
<a href="http://www.example.com">http://www.example.com</a>
<a href="mailto:email@gmail.com">email@gmail.com</a>
http://txttag.mee
<i src="http://www.google.com">hi</i>
<a href="http://google.com"></a>
https://www.txttag.mee
ftp://www.example.com
ftps://www.example.com';
$subst = "<a href=\"$1$2://$3\">$3</a>";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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 PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php