use strict;
my $str = 'http://domain.com/too_long_link
http://domain.com/link';
my $regex = qr~((ht|f)tps?://\w[^\s"<,]{0,18})[^\s"<,]*~ip;
my $subst = '<a target="_blank" href="$0" >$1</a>';
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