my @list=("set abcde-efghi 12345",
          "set abcde-ijkl 12345",
          "clr abcde-efghi+123",
          "clr abcde-ijkl 12345");

my @expected_substrings=("set","clr"," abcde-","efghi",
                         "ijkl"," 12345","+123"); 
my $len=@expected_substrings*2; 
$len+=length($_) foreach @expected_substrings;