$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le ' use Getopt::Long; sub sub1 { my ($name, $value) = @_; my $want = 3; my @got = split /\s+/ => $value; die "--$name requires $want values. Got: @got\n" unless @got == $want; print "$name $_" for @got; } GetOptions( "test=s" => \&sub1 ); ' -- --test 'a b c' test a test b test c