A method, system and computer program for automatically launching a target application based on characteristics of a selected string of characters in a source application includes the steps of receiving a command resulting from a user's action, selecting a string of characters in a source application; identifying among one or a plurality of predefined regular expressions, a regular expression matching the selected string of character; identifying a predefined data type previously associated with the source application and the regular expression matching the selected string of character; identifying a predefined target application previously associated with the identified data type and the source application; and launching the target application.