Rolled two ways to do it, in case just one page of code might be enlightening.

# Simple command argument extraction:
sub grabArgs {
    my( $cmd )= @_;
    my @args;
    while(  $cmd =~ m{
        (?: ^ | \G )        # Don't skip any characters
        \s*                 # Skip leading whitespace
        (?:
            ([^\s"]+)       # Non-space non-quotes are simple argument
+s, capture
          | (")             # Double-quoted string, capture it as $2
            (               # Capture the inside as $3
                (?:         # Zero or more of the following
                    \\.     # Use \\ and \" to get \ and " inside quot
+es
                  | [^\\"]+ # Not \ nor " means just include it
                )*
            )"
          | ($)             # End of string as $4
        )
        (?! \S )            # Arguments must be space-separated
    }xgc  ) {
        return \@args
            if  defined $4;
        push @args, $2 ? $3 : $1;
        $args[-1] =~ s/\\(.)/$1/g
            if  $2;
    }
    substr( $cmd, pos($cmd), 0, "<ERROR>" );
    die "Invalid command specification near '<ERROR>': $cmd\n";
}

# Pretty much what Text::Shellwords does:
sub parseArgs {
    my( $cmd )= @_;
    my @args;
    while(  $cmd =~ m{
        (?: ^\s* | \G )
        (?:
            ($)                         # $1: End of string
          | (\s+)                       # $2: Whitespace
          | ([^\s\\"']+)                # $3: Nothing special
          | '( [^']* )'                 # $4: 'string'
          | "( (?: \\. | [^\\"]+ )* )"  # $5: "string"
          | \\ (.)                      # $6: \x escape
        )
    }xgc  ) {
        my( $end, $sp, $ns, $sq, $dq, $esc )=
            ( $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6 );
        return \@args
            if  defined $end;
        push @args, ''
            if  ! @args;
        if(  $sp  ) {
            push @args, '';
        } elsif(  defined $ns  ) {
            $args[-1] .= $ns;
        } elsif(  defined $sq  ) {
            $args[-1] .= $sq;
        } elsif(  defined $dq  ) {
            $dq =~ s/\\(.)/$1/g;
            $args[-1] .= $dq;
        } elsif(  defined $esc  ) {
            $args[-1] .= $esc;
        } else {
            die "Buggy code";
        }
    }
    substr( $cmd, pos($cmd), 0, "<ERROR>" );
    die "Invalid command specification near '<ERROR>': $cmd\n";
}
[download]

Interestingly, I had to go back to perl 5.005_03 in order to find a Perl that this works on. It appears to tickle bugs in Perl for several 5.8 and 5.6 versions. I might test on 5.10 tomorrow when I have a copy handy again.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.