Win8 Strawberry 5.30.3.1 (64)  Tue 03/30/2021 11:53:39
C:\@Work\Perl\monks
>perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings

use 5.010;  # needs (?|...) branch reset

my $rx_dq_body  = qr{ [^\\"]* (?: \\. [^\\"]* )* }xms;
my $rx_unquoted = qr{ \S+ }xms;

for my $args (
    '',  ' ',
    '23 45.67 "John Marcus O\"Ddly" Surname',
    '"only \"quoted\" thing"',
    'no quoted stuff',
    ) {

    my $got_parsed_args =
    my @parsed_args =
    $args =~ m{ \G \s* (?| " ($rx_dq_body) " | ($rx_unquoted)) }xmsg;

    print ">$args< -> ";

    if ($got_parsed_args) {
        printf "%s \n", join ' ', map ">$_<", @parsed_args;
        }
    else {
        print "nada \n";
        }

    }

^Z
>< -> nada
> < -> nada
>23 45.67 "John Marcus O\"Ddly" Surname< -> >23< >45.67< >John Marcus O\"Ddly< >Surname<
>"only \"quoted\" thing"< -> >only \"quoted\" thing<
>no quoted stuff< -> >no< >quoted< >stuff<