#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my $str ="  abc xyz   \n";

my @tokens = split(/\s+/,$str);
print Dumper \@tokens;

=PRINTS:
$VAR1 = [
          '',
          'abc',
          'xyz'
        ];
=cut        

@tokens = split (' ',$str);
print Dumper \@tokens;

# note: leading blank field is not there!
# no need to remove spaces at beginning or end of
# line with this special situation.

=PRINTS:
$VAR1 = [
          'abc',
          'xyz'
        ];
=cut