C:\test>perl
use warnings; use strict;
$_ = "abc=def=geh\n";
chomp;
s/^s\+//; s/\s+$//;
my ($var, $value) = split(/\s*=\s*/, $_, 2);
print "\$var: $var\n";
print "\$value: $value\n";
^D
$var: abc
$value: def=geh