I'd use a regex like: 
print "$_\n" for "'Pugh.Pugh'.Barney.McGrew.Cuthbert.Dibble.Grub"=~/('
+.+?'|".+?"|[^\.]+).?/g

[download]
Update: Or maybe 
/('(?:[^'\\]*|\\.)+'|"(?:[^"\\]*|\\.)+"|[^\.]+).?/g

[download]

In reply to Re: splitting headache by Ido
in thread splitting headache by Wibble

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