c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $tim = '10:00:10.004'; ;; my @outputlist = split '[:.]', $tim; dd \@outputlist; ;; my $p = 10; @outputlist = split $p, $tim; dd \@outputlist; " [10, "00", 10, "004"] ["", ":00:", ".004"]