jQuery Text links to Hyperlinks

This function find all strings containing http and transforms them into real links.

HTML

<div id="links">
      <ul>
          <h4>Growth Hacking</h4>
          http://www.growth-hacker.com
          http://growthhackers.com
          http://growthbakery.com (FR)
          <h4>UX</h4>
          http://goodui.org
          http://peek.usertesting.com
          <h4>Analytics</h4>
          http://www.google.com/analytics
          http://piwik.org (~ Google Analytics)
      </ul>
</div>

JavaScript

// Check the main container is ready
$('#links').ready(function(){
    // Get each div
    $('ul').each(function(){
        // Get the content
        var str = $(this).html();
        // Set the regex string
        var regex = /(https?:\/\/([-\w\.]+)+(:\d+)?(\/([\w\/_\.]*(\?\S+)?)?)?)/ig
        // Replace plain text links by hyperlinks
        var replaced_text = str.replace(regex, "<a href='$1'>$1</a>");
        // Echo link
        $(this).html(replaced_text);
    });
});