Actually what your regex is trying to match is spaces tabs or literal '.' characters. In a character class the '.' char matches a literal '.' Outside it matches *anything* including spaces but excluding only newlines. It will match newlines as well with a /s modifier.

$_='1222222222222222222223333333333333333333344444';
/(.)(.{20})(.{20})(.{5})/;
print "$1 $2 $3 $4";

# '.' will match a space
print " "  =~ /./  ? "\nmatch space" : "\nno match space";
# this is how you make . match everyting with a /s
print "\n" =~ /./  ? "\nmatch" : "\nno match";
print "\n" =~ /./s ? "\nmatch" : "\nno match";
[download]

Hope this helps

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n\w+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print