You could stick spaces into those 'empty' bars by swapping with something like this: while($line =~ s/\|\|/\| \|/){}

eg where $fileName is a text file containing your string: 

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

my $fileName = $ARGV[0];
my @old;
my @new;

open (my $file, "<", $fileName);
while(<$file>)
    {
        my $line = $_;
        while($line =~ s/\|\|/\| \|/){}
        #print STDERR "OLD: $_\tNEW: $line";
        @old = split(/\|/, $_);
        @new = split(/\|/, $line);
    }

for(@old)
    {
        print STDERR "OLD: $_\n";
    }
print STDERR "\n";
for(@new)
    {
        print STDERR "NEW: $_\n";
    }

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In reply to Re: foreach skipping elements by mtmcc
in thread foreach skipping elements by tiggyboo

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