c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $s = q{name1=value1 name2=' value2=0' name3=value3}; ;; my $name = qr{ \w+ }xms; my $plain = qr{ \w+ }xms; my $s_quoted = qr{ ' [^\x27]* ' }xms; ;; my %h = $s =~ m{ ($name) \s* = \s* ($s_quoted | $plain) \s* }xmsg; dd \%h; " { name1 => "value1", name2 => "' value2=0'", name3 => "value3" }