Why are you so determined to use split in this instance? It looks to me like a regular extraction would work: 

  $string = "a:b::c   d";
  @fields = $string =~ /([^:]*):+([^:]+):+(\S+)\s*(\S+)/;

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Matt

In reply to Re: expanding the functionality of split by mojotoad
in thread expanding the functionality of split by tigervamp

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