use strict;

my $string = '       this          that           other        ';

$string =~ s/^\s+//;
$string =~ s/\s+$//;

my ($one, $two, $three) = split /\s+/, $string;

print "$one\n$two\n$three\n\n";

##</code><code>##

/home/jptxs > perl -w stripNsplit
this
that
other

/home/jptxs >