Instead of using a single scalar, why not call quota in list context?

@lines = `quota -v`;
my $header = shift @lines;
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As an aside, regular expressions might not be best for something that has fairly predictable formatting. Then again, It's my weakest area of Perl knowledge by far so take that with a grain of salt. Faced with the same problem, I came up with Parsing program output snippets.

-Lee

"To be civilized is to deny one's nature."