$ perl -E'say scalar( split( /\./, q{.}, -1 ));'
2
$ perl -E'say scalar( split( q{.}, q{.}, -1 ));'
2

##</code><code>##

$ perl -MData::Dump -e 'dd split( /\./, q{.x.} )'
("", "x")
$ perl -MData::Dump -e 'dd split( q{.}, q{.x.} )'
()
$ perl -MData::Dump -e 'dd split( /\./, q{.x.}, -1 )'
("", "x", "")
$ perl -MData::Dump -e 'dd split( q{.}, q{.x.}, -1 )'
("", "", "", "")