use strict; use Data::Dumper; my $test = "hello world"; my %frags = (); if($test =~ m/(\w+)\s(\w+)/g) { %frags = ( 'a' => $1, 'b' => $2); } print Dumper(\%frags); my @sexy_array; foreach my $key (keys %frags) { push(@sexy_array, $frags{$key}); } print Dumper(\@sexy_array);