Another approach using regexes: extract quoted groups: 
use warnings;
use strict;


MAIN: {

my $qc = q{"};  # quoting character
my $quoted_body = qr{ [^$qc\\]* (?: \\. [^$qc\\]* )* }xms;

while (<DATA>) {
    my (undef, undef, undef, $time, $data1, $data2) =
        m{ $qc ($quoted_body) $qc }xmsg;
    print "time: <$time>  data1: <$data1>  data2: <$data2> \n";
    }

}


__DATA__
example.txt "unimportant1" "unimportant2" "unimportant3" "timeA" "data
+1A" "data2A"
other.txt "ignore1" "ignore2" "ign\"ore3" "timeB" "data1B" "dat\"a2B"
foo.txt "ignore1" "" "ign\"ore3" " timeC " "" "dat\"a2C"

[download]
Output: 
time: <timeA>  data1: <data1A>  data2: <data2A>
time: <timeB>  data1: <data1B>  data2: <dat\"a2B>
time: < timeC >  data1: <>  data2: <dat\"a2C>

[download]

In reply to Re: Reading and Separating Data From a File Using Regex by AnomalousMonk
in thread Reading and Separating Data From a File Using Regex by peeeerld

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • 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! —
  • 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:
    & &amp;
    < &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.