You keep on using that word 'split' ... i do not think you know what it means. ;) Consider the following: 
my $str = 'foo,bar,moo,cow';
my @value = $str =~ m/(\w+)\,?/g;
print "@value\n";

@value = split(',',$str);
print "@value\n"

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They both achieve the same results, and guess which one is easier to understand?

You say have non-repeatable fields, how does using a regex make this easier than split? What do you think split uses to split? A regex! Besides, oro has a family of split functions. You could always do a series of splits if multiple delimiters are used: 

my $str  = 'a,b,c:d,e,f:g,h,i';
my @part = split(':',$str);

foreach my $part (@part) {
   my @subpart = split(',',$part);
   print "@subpart\n";
}

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The split functions found in the org.apache.oro package can do this, you just have to jump through more hoops. ;) Not that it matters, but one of my beefs about Java is not being able to process lists easily like you can in Perl: 
print $_,$/ for map split(',',$_), split(':', $str);

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Best of luck.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

In reply to (jeffa) 5Re: More Variable length regex issues by jeffa
in thread More Variable length regex issues by dextius

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