Do you really care which get 8 and which get 9? The following almost does it:

sub split_to_n {
  my $n = shift;
  my @p = map {(@_)*$_/$n} 0..$n;
  map {[@_[$p[$_-1]..($p[$_]-1)]]} 1..$n;
}
[download]

Indeed try some sample code out like this:

use Data::Dumper;
$Data::Dumper::Indent = 1;
print Dumper split_to_n(3, 'a'..'z');
[download]

and it works except that the group of 9 is the last rather than the first. The following less compact version, however, satisfies the given spec perfectly:

sub split_to_n {
  my $n = shift;
  my @p = map {(@_)*$_/$n} 0..$n;
  @_ = reverse @_;
  map {[reverse @_[$p[$_-1]..($p[$_]-1)]]} reverse 1..$n;
}
[download]

May I submit that the spec you gave is twisted? :-)

PS This is the kind of code which could benefit from an explanatory comment about the interface. :-)

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