I think what you need is split

my @lines = split(/\n/, $datastring);
foreach my $line (@lines) {
  my ($key, $val) = split(/=/, $line);
}
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my $name = 'Ben Kittrell';
$name=~s/^(.+)\s(.).+$/\L$1$2/g;
my $nick = 'tha' . $name . 'sta';
[download]