The help for split say this, so I think it's expected behaviour (but it is very late here !)

If LIMIT is omitted (or, equivalently, zero), then it is usually treated as if it were instead negative but with the exception that trailing empty fields are stripped (empty leading fields are always preserved); if all fields are empty, then all fields are considered to be trailing (and are thus stripped in this case).

In reply to Re: split tosses away empty components even with positive width separators? by RichardK
in thread split tosses away empty components even with positive width separators? by wrog

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