Also my @splat = $thing =~ m/\d{4}/g; only sets @splt = ('1234');

That's funny, because:

my $thing = '12340019';
my @splat = $thing =~ m/\d{4}/g;

print Dumper \@splat;
__END__
$VAR1 = [
          '1234',
          '0019'
        ];
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Cheers, Sören