Then you had a syntax error in your code (such as either missing the closing parenthesis, misplacing it (putting it to the right of the slash), or accidentally escaping it (by preceding it with a \). As you can see here, it should just work:

$ perl foo.pl
ServiceCategoryName=foo,bar,baz
my string foo

$ cat foo.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $str = "ServiceCategoryName=foo,bar,baz\n";

if ( $str =~ m/^ServiceCategoryName=(.*)/) {
   print $str;

   # Extract the array from "the rest of the line"
   my @array = split /,/, $1;
   print "my string ", $array[0], "\n";
}
else {
    print "Can't find ServiceCategoryName!\n";
}
[download]

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

Tried that option ...

You don't say what option you tried (a mortal sin in the Monastery), but one can make a guess at your code:

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $str = 'ServiceCategoryName=(3,1,0,1,1,0)';
 ;;
 if ($str =~ m/^ServiceCategoryName=(.*/) {
   print qq{'$str'};
   my @array = split /,/, $str;
   print qq{first split element: '$array[0]'};
   }
"
Unmatched ( in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/^ServiceCategoryName=( <
+-- HERE .*/ at -e line 1.
[download]

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $str= 'ServiceCategoryName=(3,1,0,1,1,0)';
 ;;
 if ($str =~ m/^ServiceCategoryName=\((.*)\)/) {
   print qq{parenthesized substring: '$1'};
   my @array = split /,/, $1;
   print qq{first split element: '$array[0]'};
   }
"
parenthesized substring: '3,1,0,1,1,0'
first split element: '3'
[download]