use strict;

my $str = "abc\t\t\t\t\thij\t\t\t\t\t";
my @a = split("\t", $str, 99999);
for (0..$#a) {
    if (defined($a[$_])) {
        print "element $_ is $a[$_]\n";
    } else {
        print "element $_ is undef\n";
    }
}
print $#a; #print out 10