The fastest I could come up with to find links in a text story to convert to html tag for web use Most make links out of garbage like ss.ss.sss even www.www this requires www if it isnt following https?:// so it finds urls not typos IF your paranoid that it might pull links out of an html tag in your raw text add this to the beginning (?:<a[^<]+</a>)(*SKIP)(*FAIL)|
And yes I did use a base url for the link text on purpose because www.whatever.com is easier to read than www.whatever.com/manythings.php?annoying=this&mostpeople=wontUnderstandAllThis&plus=ItsHardToReadInAstory