use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my $line = "     X  Y    \tZ   A  \n";

my @tokens = split ' ', $line;
print Dumper \@tokens;

@tokens = split /\s+/, $line;
print Dumper \@tokens;

__END__
$VAR1 = [              #split ' ' version
          'X',         #note ending removed
          'Y',
          'Z',
          'A'
        ];
$VAR1 = [              #split /\s+/ version
          '',          #note ending removed
          'X',
          'Y',
          'Z',
          'A'
        ];