in reply to how to read words in a line into separate variables

Here's the split way:

($e, $a, $b, $c, $d) = split (/[(),]/, q{write("thepath",8'h44,status,"info")});

But you could also use capture groups or a CSV parser or whatever is most appropriate for your data population rather than this single given example.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom