Regex Group in Perl: how to capture elements into array from regex group that matches unknown number of/multiple/variable occurrences from a string?

Question

In Perl, how can I use one regex grouping to capture more than one occurrence that matches it, into several array elements?

For example, for a string:

Answer 1

I'm not saying this is what you should do, but what you're trying to do is write a Grammar. Now your example is very simple for a Grammar, but Damian Conway's module Regexp::Grammars is really great at this. If you have to grow this at all, you'll find it will make your life much easier. I use it quite a bit here - it is kind of perl6-ish.

use Regexp::Grammars;
use Data::Dumper;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $parser = qr{
    <[pair]>+
         =(?:""|)
         var\d+
         <[MATCH=literal]> ** (,)
     \S+

}xms;

q[var1=100 var2=90 var5=hello var3="a, b, c" var7=test var3=hello] =~ $parser;
die Dumper {%/};

Output:

$VAR1 = {
          '' => 'var1=100 var2=90 var5=hello var3="a, b, c" var7=test var3=hello',
          'pair' => [
                      {
                        '' => 'var1=100',
                        'value' => '100',
                        'key' => 'var1'
                      },
                      {
                        '' => 'var2=90',
                        'value' => '90',
                        'key' => 'var2'
                      },
                      {
                        '' => 'var5=hello',
                        'value' => 'hello',
                        'key' => 'var5'
                      },
                      {
                        '' => 'var3="a, b, c"',
                        'key' => 'var3',
                        'list' => [
                                    'a',
                                    'b',
                                    'c'
                                  ]
                      },
                      {
                        '' => 'var7=test',
                        'value' => 'test',
                        'key' => 'var7'
                      },
                      {
                        '' => 'var3=hello',
                        'value' => 'hello',
                        'key' => 'var3'
                      }
                    ]