#!/usr/bin/perl

my $string="realllylongstringthatrefusestoend".
" <A HREF=\"http://perlmonks.org/images/blah/blah/blah\">\n";
print splitter($string,"<.*?>","\S{18}","$1 ");
sub splitter{
	my($string,$spliton,$find,$replace)=@_;
   my @array=split(/$spliton/,$string);
	my $i=0;
	my @splitters;
	my $str;
	while($string=~/($spliton)/g){
		push @splitters,$1;
	}
	for(@array){

		#none of these work
   	#s/$find/$replace/eeg;               
		#s/$find/$1 /g;
		#eval '$string' . " =~ s/$find/$replace/";

		#this works
		s/(\S{18})/$1 /g;
		$str.=$array[$i];
		$str.=$splitters[$i];
		$i++;
	}
	$str;
}