HTML to Plain TXT Parser (RegEx Help Needed)

Hello, I am working on a a script that reads in an HTML file, and outputs formatted plain text. Not a significant task, but one area that I am having difficulty with is gracefully converting the 'A' element. The desired outcome is text that maintains the link reference in brackets: ------------------------------------ $body = "<p><a href=\"mailto:mike@email.org\">first link</a></p> <p><a href=\"http://www.tao.ca/\">second link</a></p> <p><a href=\"http://www.tao.ca\">http://www.tao.ca</a></p> <p><a href=\"mailto:mike@email.org\">mike@email.org</a>"; // Regex's for dealing with HTML elements here // Most of them omitted for simplicity $body = preg_replace ('/<a href="(http:\/\/)(.*)".*>(.*)<\/a>/Usi', "\\3 (\\1\\2)", $body[$el]); $body = preg_replace ('/<a href="(mailto:)(.*)".*>(.*)<\/a>/Usi', "\\3 (\\2)", $body[$el]); //---------------// // output // //---------------// /* first link (mike@email.org) second link (http://www.tao.ca/) http://www.tao.ca (http://www.tao.ca) mike@email.org (mike@email.org) */ ------------------------------------------ The regex above deal fine for the first and second link, but leave redundant text in the third and fourth. Ideally, the regex expressions would not include the text in brackets in the 3rd and 4th lines. This is what I am having difficulty with. How can I incorporate such logic into my regex's? Thank for your help, Michael Caplan Institute for Social Ecology http://www.social-ecology.org/ 1118 Maple Hill Road Plainfield, VT, 05667 USA