my @array = (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9);
my @array_2 = (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,,,,,,);

print "Scalar of array 1 =",scalar @array,"\n";
print "Scalar of array 2 =",scalar @array_2,"\n";

##</code><code>##

bash-2.03$ perl test.pl
Scalar of array 1 =9
Scalar of array 2 =9
bash-2.03$ 

##</code><code>##

#split but do not toss out empty fields
split ("\t",string,999999)