use strict;
use warnings;

##</code><code>##

    @fields = spit " ";

##</code><code>##

$_ = "   begins with whitespace";

@a = split " ";
@b = split /\s+/;

print "quoted-space split returns ", scalar @a, " elements\n";
print "\\s+ split returns ", scalar @b, ", first one has length ",length($b[0]),"\n";