One way to do it with split:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $var = "xxx:12345 yyy:54321 zzz:13245";

my @items = split /:\S+\s*/, $var;

print"@items\n";

__END__
xxx yyy zzz
[download]

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";