unpackin(); sub unpackin { my $text = 'girl,you,really,got,me,now,you,got,me,so,i,dont,know,what,im,doin,666,777,99.99'; my @ar = split /,/, $text ; my @lens = map { length } @ar ; my $index = 0; my $format = ''; foreach my $len (@lens) { $format .= "A$len" . 'A'; } my $odd= 1; my @words = grep { ($odd) ? ($odd=0)+1 : ($odd=1)-1 ;} unpack($format, $text ); print "( @ar )\n"; print "( @lens )\n"; print "format = $format\n"; print join "|", @words; print "\n"; }