c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "use 5.010; ;; 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" }