c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le
"use 5.010;
 ;;
 my $s = 'a,b, CC ,d , e,fgh  ';
 ;;
 my $sym = qr{ [^,\s]+ }xms;
 my $sep = qr{ \s* , \s* }xms;
 ;;
 my $n_syms =
 my ($u, $v, $w, $x, $y, $z) =
 $s =~ m{
   (?: \G (?! \A) $sep | \A \s*) \K
   $sym
   (?= (?: $sep $sym)* \s* \z)
   }xmsg;
 ;;
 $n_syms == 6 or die qq{bad string: '$s'};
 dd $u, $v, $w, $x, $y, $z;
"
("a", "b", "CC", "d", "e", "fgh")