POSIX and PCRE help

I am trying to learn more about regular expressions as I haven't used them much in the past. I am working with email, and I'm looking for a way to split the following expression up: Content-Type: text/plain; boundary="whatever"; Using "/^(\S+)\:\s*(.+)$/iU" I can split it into: [Content-Type] and [text/plain; boundary="whatever";] Problem is, it might have different tags. Here's a sketch of the whole thing: [Header Name a-zA-Z0-9] [\s*] [:] [\s*] [ Header value a-zA-Z0-9/_ ] [\s*] [;] [ unlimited repeating pattern of ( [Property Name a-zA-Z0-9] [\s*] [=] [\s*] ( string optionally surrounded by quotes - but necessary if value has spaces - but can't include quotes ) [\s*] [;] ) ] So, if I had: User: JohnDoe; age=32; nickname="Billy 'the' Kid"; haircolor=orange; I would need: User - "JohnDoe" - age - "32" - nickname - "Billy 'the' Kid" - haircolor - "orange" in the outputted array. I have no idea how to do repeating patterns like this...maybe I'm making this too complex? Thanks for your help! Lewis