Wow! I guess this wasn't that "easy". It is tricky. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $string = '111111111:22222\:2222:333333333:4444444';

$string =~ s/\\:/:/;     #translate \: to just :
                         #the "trick" and its all over now...
                         
chomp ($string);         #don't worry about trailing \n

my @strings = split (/:/,$string);

foreach my $line (@strings)
{
   print "$line\n";
}
__END__
prints:
111111111
22222
2222
333333333
4444444

[download]
Update: the above code produces exactly what the OP asked for, but it could be that 22222\:2222 is a typo and that this "2" string doesn't include a backslash. If so then just split on [:\n] or something like that.

In reply to Re: Easy Split by Marshall
in thread Easy Split by ropey

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