/(             #A nice simple capture, for
  [^|\{]+      #a block of nonsignificant chars
 |
  \{ [^}]+ \}  #or a bracketed block
 ) 
  \|           #followed by a pipe.
/x


##</code><code>##

$VAR1 = [
          '',
          'foo',
          '',
          '{baz|qux}',
          'fax'
        ];

##</code><code>##

If the PATTERN contains parentheses, additional list elements are created 
from each matching substring in the delimiter.