my $var='474627 asidase ta sidase ala,"lpha-D- ctoside gtohydrolase","razyme","arazyme (enz Corp)","Melie","lagal","idase bta", rug 00103'; my $tmp; $var =~ s{ ("[^"]+") }{ ($tmp = $1) =~ s/\t/ /g; $tmp }xge; my @each=split(/\t/,$var); for my $eachvar(@each) { print "$eachvar\n"; }