Well, here we go with the final code.

I needed to get the thing working today, so I opted for the following way of doing it - a combination of in/elegance :) Viz:

sub Parse_SM_Sub_Header {

#
# [...private notes...]
#
#  The array returned by this sub contains the following items:
#
#    0  Sub system
#    1  Marriage state
#    2  Marriage vote
#    3  Split plan
#    4  Split plan lock
#    5  Link plan
#    6  Link plan lock
#    7  Split plan vote
#    8  Link plan vote
#    9  Cycle time lock
#   10  Cycle time
#   11  Rotation state
#   12  Rotation amount
#   13  Requested cycle time
#   14  VF state
#   15  Critical SA
#   16  Critical SA DS
#

   my ($line) = @_;
   my ($tmpbuf);
   my (@retarg);

   my %patterns = (
      qr/SS\s*(\d+)([MF# ])([\+\- ])/
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1);    # Sub system
                  push(@retarg, $2);    # Marriage state
                  push(@retarg, $3);    # Marriage vote
                },

      qr/PL\s*(\d+)([\#\.])(\d+)([\#\.]?)/
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1);    # Split plan

                  $tmpbuf = $2;         # Split plan lock
                  $tmpbuf = "" if ($tmpbuf ne "#");
                  push(@retarg, $tmpbuf);
                  
                  push(@retarg, $3);    # Link plan

                  $tmpbuf = $4;         # Link plan lock
                  $tmpbuf = "" if ($tmpbuf ne "#");
                  push(@retarg, $tmpbuf);
                },
    
      qr/PV\s*([a-z]?\d+)(\.)(\d+)/
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1);    # Split plan vote
                  push(@retarg, $3);    # Link plan vote
                },
    
      qr/C[LT]\s*([\#\^]?)\s*(\d+)\s*([\+\-])(\d+)\s*/,
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1);    # Cycle time lock
                  push(@retarg, $2);    # Cycle time
                  push(@retarg, $3);    # Rotation state
                  push(@retarg, $4);    # Rotation amount
                },
    
      qr/RL\s*(\d+)([,'"]?)/
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1);    # Requested cycle time
                  push(@retarg, $2);    # VF state
                },
    
      qr/SA\s+(\d+)/
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1); }, # Critical SA
    
      qr/DS\s+(\d+)/
         => sub { push(@retarg, $1); }, # Critical SA DS
   );

   $_ = {};
   @retarg = ();
   $line =~ s/^\s*//;

LOOP:
   while (length($line)) {
      for my $k (keys %patterns) {
         if ($line =~ s/^$k(?:\s+|\z)//) {
            $patterns{$k}->();
            next LOOP;
         }
      }
      warn "Parse_SM_Sub_Header: Error parsing input\n                
+     \\$line\\\n";
      $_->{leftover} = $line;
      last;
   }
  $_;
   return(@retarg);
} # end Parse_SM_Sub_Header
[download]

It works quite happily on all the versions of outputs that I have to deal with, so I think we'll be right for a while :)

Again, many thanks for everyone's help.

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