Based on looking at Apache access log files for several years, I believe that we can rely on the following to be true (assuming we are using the default log format):
1. The method is always present.
2. The request URI is always present, and may or may not contain query params, but will never contain spaces
3. The version may not be present.
So, I propose that you split off the method+uri, treat the remainder as version and use the URI::Split module to break apart the URI: 
use URI::Split;
sub split_request
{
    my @parts=split(/ /,$_[0]);
    scalar(@parts)>=2 or die "Bad request '$_[0]'";
    my $method=shift @parts;
    my $uri=shift @parts;
    my ($scheme, $auth, $path, $query, $frag) = uri_split($uri);
    my $protover=join(' ',@parts);
    return ($method,$scheme,$auth,$path,$query,$frag,$protover);
} 
 


In reply to Re: splitting a string that appears inconsistently in structure
by fzellinger

in thread splitting a string that appears inconsistently in structure
by TheGorf





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