#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
while (<DATA>) {
 my $line = $_;
 $line =~ s/\s+/\|/;
 $line =~ s/\s+/\|/;
 $line =~ s/\s+/\|/;
 $line =~ s/\s+/\|/;
 $line =~ s/\s+/\|/;
 print $line;
}
__DATA__
This#    is      stand alone data        "but this data needs to , stay together/
and here is some more   -but this is a single column