while () { my %pet = parse_pet($_); print "Name: $pet{'name'}\n"; } sub parse_pet { my ($line) = @_; my @param_pairs = split(/\s/, $line); my %params = (); foreach my $param ( @param_pairs ) { my ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $param, 2); $params{$name} = $value; } return %params; }