Try something like: 

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"for my $s (
   qq{abcd\t723-724},
   qq{abcde\t552-554-553},
   qq{abcdef\t756},
   qq{abcdef\tfoo},
   ) {
   my $parsed =
   my ($base, $groups) =
   $s =~ m{ \A ([[:alpha:]]+) \t (\d+ (?: - \d+)*) \z }xms;
   ;;
   die qq{bad string '$s'} unless $parsed;
   ;;
   print qq{'$s' -> };
   for my $g ($groups =~ /\d+/g) {
     print qq{  '$base' '$g'};
     }
   }
"
'abcd   723-724' ->
  'abcd' '723'
  'abcd' '724'
'abcde  552-554-553' ->
  'abcde' '552'
  'abcde' '554'
  'abcde' '553'
'abcdef 756' ->
  'abcdef' '756'
bad string 'abcdef      foo' at -e line 1.

[download]

Update: Well, basically the same idea as tybalt89's approach, but more effort at data validation.

Give a man a fish:  <%-{-{-{-<

In reply to Re: regex problem by AnomalousMonk
in thread regex problem by Anonymous Monk

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