note johngg <p>Do you mean that the opening parenthesis is optional in the text you are [doc://split]ing? If so, you can use a '<c>?</c>' quantifier to make the opening parenthesis "zero or one of" but you also have to use a negative look behind to make sure you don't split '(' from 'a)'. I've added the '<c>x</c>' modifier to the pattern so I can space it out and make it more readable.</p> <code> knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ perl -E ' > $line = q{(a) Line 1. b) Line 2. (c) Line 32. d) Line 42.}; > @arr = split m{ (?<! \( ) (?= \(? [a-z] \) ) }x, $line; > say qq{>$_<} for @arr;' >(a) Line 1. < >b) Line 2. < >(c) Line 32. < >d) Line 42.< knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ </code> <p>I hope this is helpful.</p> <!-- Node text goes above. Div tags should contain sig only --> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-401112"> <p>Cheers,</p><p>JohnGG</p> </div></div> 937621 937859