#!/usr/bin/perl

use Data::Dumper;

$_ = " foo bar baz ";

my @a = split ' ';
my @b = split /\s+/;

print Dumper \@a;
print Dumper \@b;

__DATA__
$VAR1 = [
          'foo',
          'bar',
          'baz'
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          '',
          'foo',
          'bar',
          'baz'
        ];