##
my @fields = split '', $input;
foreach my $field (@fields) {
# what i really wanted to do was...
# (undef, $names{$1}) =~ m// but that didnt work either
# so I added the $foo and $bar.
my ($foo, $bar) = $field =~
m!^(.*) {3}(.*).*$!x;
$names{$foo} = $bar;
print "$foo == $bar\n";
}