G'day zBernie,

Is the original data in a fixed format? If so, you can use unpack: 

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

while (<DATA>) {
    say '[', join(']~[' => map { s/\s*$//; $_ } unpack 'A8A14A22A6A9A3
+A*'), ']';
}

__DATA__
138454  mail_room     Marco's Pizza         12/26 21:52    1  rcv     
138446  custsvc       973 618 0577          12/26 18:44    1  rcv     
138445  county2       spam                  12/26 18:41    3  rcv     
138444  custsvc       spam                  12/26 18:30    1  rcv
138439  county2       7182737253            12/26 17:54    2  rcv     
138438  county2       Acme Products, Inc.   12/26 17:52    1  rcv

[download]

Output:

$ pm_split_space_sep_log.pl
[138454]~[mail_room]~[Marco's Pizza]~[12/26]~[21:52]~[1]~[rcv]
[138446]~[custsvc]~[973 618 0577]~[12/26]~[18:44]~[1]~[rcv]
[138445]~[county2]~[spam]~[12/26]~[18:41]~[3]~[rcv]
[138444]~[custsvc]~[spam]~[12/26]~[18:30]~[1]~[rcv]
[138439]~[county2]~[7182737253]~[12/26]~[17:54]~[2]~[rcv]
[138438]~[county2]~[Acme Products, Inc.]~[12/26]~[17:52]~[1]~[rcv]

[download]

-- Ken

In reply to Re: How to split line with varying number of tokens? by kcott
in thread How to split line with varying number of tokens? by zBernie

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