Thanks, I was looking for a match instead of a substitute, so this and the other replies were helpful.

A note on your comment:

Since you want "1234 221", not "1234", which is what that regex will capture

The code I posted does work (because it takes n trips through the while() loop), and pulls in both 1234 and 221 into @args. It's just uglier than I wanted.

Thanks all !