use warnings;
use strict;
use Test::More tests=>1;

my $str = "iowq john stepy andy anne alic bert stepy anne bert andy step alic andy";

my %names;
pos($str)=undef;
while ($str=~/\G\s*(\S+)(?:\s+|\z)/gc) {
	$names{$1}++;
}
die "failed to parse \$str" unless pos($str)==length($str);

is_deeply \%names, { alic => 2, andy => 3, anne => 2, bert => 2,
	iowq => 1, john => 1, step => 1, stepy => 2 };