#!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump qw/ dd pp /;
my $string = qq/a b c\nb b c\nd b c\n/;
{
  my @stuff = split /\s+/, $string;
  dd $string;
  dd \@stuff;
}
__END__
"a b c\nb b c\nd b c\n"
["a", "b", "c", "b", "b", "c", "d", "b", "c"]