Split seems entirely the better solution here.

That being said, a good rule is that anything XML should be parsed and not reg-exed. You will always start with something simple, add a few things left and right and before you know it, it gets so complex that you are re-inventing an XML-parser in order to read it.

Better to use the original CSV-file and let it be handled by Text::CSV (which will nicely handle any escapes for "forbidden" characters).