#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @lines = ("a b c\n", "  a b c\n");

foreach my $line (@lines)
{
   my @array = split ' ',$line;
   print join ("|",@array), "\n";
}

foreach my $line (@lines)
{
   my @array = split /\s+/,$line;
   print join ("|",@array), "\n";
}

__END__
#using split on ' '
a|b|c
a|b|c

# using split on /\s+/  (the default)
a|b|c
|a|b|c