I just tried the following: 
#!/usr/local/perl

$test = "         foo          bar";
($var1, $var2) = ($1, $2) if ($test =~ /\s+(\S+)\s+(\S+)/);
print "Var1: $var1\nVar2: $var2";
exit;

[download]

...and it grabbed the text out and printed fine, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say none of the suggestions are working for you, can you be more specific?

If you're ever lost and need directions, ask the guy on the motorcycle.

In reply to Re^2: regular expressions query by heroin_bob
in thread regular expressions query by apocalyptica

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.