$page = "my ##Media Wiki [text|here]"; %wordcount; @words = split /(\s*|#|\[|\||\]|@|$|!|.|,)/ $page; foreach $word (@words) { $wordcount{$word}++ if $word =~ /\w/; } foreach $word (keys %wordcount) { print "$word\t$wordcount{$word}\n"; }