The question was why doesn't the array "gobble up the empty field at the end?". I was merely showing that an array won't gobble up one or many empty fields at the end.

In fact, an array won't gobble up empty fields at the start, middle or end: 

$ perl -E 'my ($x, @y) = (1,2,,3); say $#y'
1

$ perl -E 'my ($x, @y) = (1,2,,,,3,); say $#y'
1

$ perl -E 'my ($x, @y) = (1,,,,,,2,,,,,); say $#y'
0

[download]

Your question only showed the 2-argument form of split; however, answers with the 3-argument form seemed more to your liking.

I expect the underlying problem may be the huge disconnect that sometimes occurs when people communicate in a common language. :-)

-- Ken

In reply to Re^3: Mystery interaction between split and gobbling arrays by kcott
in thread Mystery interaction between split and gobbling arrays by saintmike

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.