#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; my $string = shift; # equivalent to shift @ARGV; my @DD = ( map { [ split( ':' , $_ ) ] } split( ';' , $string ) ); print Dumper \@DD; __END__ $>perl DD.pl a1:a2;b1:b2;c1:c2;11:22:33:44:55:;3:4:5; $VAR1 = [ [ 'a1', 'a2' ], [ 'b1', 'b2' ], [ 'c1', 'c2' ], [ '11', '22', '33', '44', '55' ], [ '3', '4', '5' ] ]; $>