the =()= trick can not be used with split as it is "optimized" into split /foo/, $bar, 1:: 
$ perl -MO=Deparse -e '$a = () = split'

$a = () = split(" ", $_, 1);

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In reply to Re^2: Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array by salva
in thread Counting the number of items returned by split without using a named array by Anonymous Monk

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