>perl -wMstrict -le "my $s = 'key1=val1 key2=val2 key3=val3 key4=\"val4a val4b\" ' . 'key5=\"val5key=(0 1 2 3)\" key6=(val6a val6b)' ; ;; my $key = qr{ [[:alpha:]] [[:alnum:]]+ }xms; my $val = qr{ [[:alpha:]] [[:alnum:]]+ }xms; my $d_quo = qr{ \x22 [^\x22]* \x22 }xms; my $paren = qr{ [(] [^)]* [)] }xms; ;; my $vals = qr{ $val | $d_quo | $paren }xms; ;; my @opts = $s =~ m{ $key \s* = \s* $vals }xmsg; ;; print qq{'$s'}; print qq{'$_'} for @opts; " 'key1=val1 key2=val2 key3=val3 key4="val4a val4b" key5="val5key=(0 1 2 3)" key6=(val6a val6b)' 'key1=val1' 'key2=val2' 'key3=val3' 'key4="val4a val4b"' 'key5="val5key=(0 1 2 3)"' 'key6=(val6a val6b)'