1) This statement:

If you leave off the pattern, split assumes you want to split on /\s+/.

needs considerable qualification. You can't just 'leave off the pattern' except in one particular circumstance. Try this:

my $str = "  foo bar baz  ";
my @spl = split $str;
print "@spl";

[download]

It just doesn't work (at least in 5.6.1). You can only leave off the 'pattern' if you also leave off the 'target', ie if you are splitting on an implicit $_, eg:

while ( <DATA> ) {
   split;
   #do something interesting;
}

[download]

2) This is plain wrong:

One special case is when you specify the string literal, " " (a quoted space), which does the same thing as specifying no delimiter at all (no argument).

There is nothing special about " " (see gmax's example above). You are confusing it with ' '.

3) One other minor point, I would suggest bringing the paragraph Preserving delimiters up to just below Where do delimiters go?, which IMHO would be a more logical ordering.

hth

dave

Update: See Abigail-II's post below

In reply to Re: Tutorial suggestion: split and join by Not_a_Number
in thread Tutorial suggestion: split and join by davido

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.