#/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

#### SPLIT DEMO #####
######## example 1 # spliting to list of variables
my $y = 'a:b::';
print "***test string is \'$y\'\n";
my @tok = my ($a,$b,$c,$d,$e,$f,$g) = split(/:/, $y);
print "number of created fields, with a-g variables: ".@tok."\n";
print "g=\'$g\'\n";
my $cnt=1;
foreach (@tok)
{
   print $cnt++," \'$_\'\n";
}

my $x = '::a :b::c:::';
print "***test string is \'$x\'\n";

####### example 2 splitting to an array

#this will split into 6 things, because trailing null fields 
#are omitted with this form of split

my @list = split(/:/,$x);   # two arg from of split
print 'split(/:/,$x)' ."      total tokens are: ". @list. "\n";  

####### example 3 splitting to an array

#this will split into 10 fields
@list = split (/:/,$x, -1);   # 3 arg form of split, -1 "huge limit"
print 'split (/:/,$x, -1)'." total tokens are: ". @list . "\n"; 

print "-1 limit includes the trailing null fields...\n";     
$cnt=1;
foreach (@list)
{
   print $cnt++," \'$_\'\n";
}

__END__
Print out:
***test string is 'a:b::'
number of created fields, with a-g variables: 7
g=''
1 'a'
2 'b'
3 ''
4 ''
5 ''
6 ''
7 ''
***test string is '::a :b::c:::'
split(/:/,$x)      total tokens are: 6
split (/:/,$x, -1) total tokens are: 9
-1 limit includes the trailing null fields...
1 ''
2 ''
3 'a '
4 'b'
5 ''
6 'c'
7 ''
8 ''
9 ''