$str = " '==\\'==' '==5==' '\\'\\'' '\\'3' '\\'' '1' '' "; my $pos = 0; my $len = length $str; my $last = ''; my $char; while ( $pos < $len ) { $char = substr $str, $pos, 1; push @pos, $pos if $char eq "'" and $last ne "\\"; $pos++; $last = $char; } for ( my $i= 0; $i <@pos; $i +=2 ) { my $begin = $pos[$i]+1; my $end = $pos[$i+1]; my $str = substr $str, $begin, ($end -$begin); print "$begin $end |$str|\n"; }