Something like this? 

#! perl -slw
use strict;

my $code = <<EOC;
This is some JOY code
This is (some more) JOY code
And this is some JOY code with escaped \\( and \\) 
like (this \\) and \\(this) and \\)
EOC

print for $code =~ m[
    (
        (?: \( (?: \\[()] | [^()] )+ \) )
        |
        \S+
    )
]gx;
__END__
C:\test>615217
This
is
some
JOY
code
This
is
(some more)
JOY
code
And
this
is
some
JOY
code
with
escaped
\(
and
\)
like
(this \) and \(this)
and
\)

[download]
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
"Too many [] have been sedated by an oppressive environment of political correctness and risk aversion."

In reply to Re^3: Splitting on unusual regex by BrowserUk
in thread Splitting on unusual regex by dewey

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.