jQuery Text links to Hyperlinks

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

by Jose SAYAGO

HTML

<div id="#feed">
    <div class="content">
        <p>Hey visit us at http://www.laelitenetwork.com</p>
    </div>
    <div class="content">
        <p>Check out http://8elite.com and follow us</p>
    </div>
    <div class="nolink">
        <p>Look ma! no links http://en.8elite.com</p>
    </div>
</div>

CSS

.content, .nolink {
    border: 1px dotted #cecece;
    padding: 3px;
    margin: 4px;
    color: #333;
}
.content a {
    color: #ff0000;
    text-decoration: none;
    border-bottom: 1px dotted #000;
}
.content a:hover { color: #ff00ff; }

JavaScript

// Check the main container is ready
$('#feed').ready(function(){
    // Get each div
    $('.content').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' target='_blank'>$1</a>");
        // Echo link
        $(this).html(replaced_text);
    });
});