$ perl -w
my $string = "this is just a test\nthis is another test\nthis is yet another test\n";
use Data::Dumper;
{
  local $Data::Dumper::Terse = 1;
  local $Data::Dumper::Useqq = 1;
  local $, = "\n";
  print substr(Dumper($string),1,-2)=~/.{1,5}/gs;
}
__END__
this
is ju
st a
test\
nthis
 is a
nothe
r tes
t\nth
is is
 yet
anoth
er te
st\n