Well it doesn't use qw and one would need a comment but.

my $stuff='one, two, , three, four'; #empty element between two and th
+ree
my @arr=split(/, /, $stuff); #split on space comma
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Since its in single quotes it will quote sort of like qw. Optionally one could split on \s (no plus) which would mean any series of 2 spaces would be an empty value from split. And you could combine the two statements.

my @arr=split(/\s/, 'one two  three four'); #same effect as above
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Of course the empty word is really subtle in the second example.

Update: Fixed the first RE typo as suggested.