I've really fallen in disfavor with using the "delimiter capturing" mechanism of split, when the list-context m//g is so much more direct and controllable:

verify($_) for $string =~ /\G(\d{3})/g;
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There. Now there's no chance that "012xxx345xxx678" will try to verify the 345 and 678, as it would for the split example (not to mention passing the xxx parts to verify.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker