may I push it as far as to dare to say that it is a bug?

well, probably not, as it is well documented on perlfunc

A workaround is to set the limit explicetly to undef (though, it generates a warning): 

$count = () = split ' ', $_, undef;

[download]

amazingly, setting it to 0 doesn't work: 

$ perl -MO=Deparse -e '$a = () = split(" ", $_, undef)'
$a = () = split(" ", $_, undef);

$ perl -MO=Deparse -e '$a = () = split(" ", $_, 0)'
$a = () = split(" ", $_, 1);

[download]

A better workaround that doesn't generate warnings is to use a zero-but-true value: 

$count = () = split ' ', $_, '0e0';

[download]
that is parsed as: 
$ perl -MO=Deparse -e '$a = () = split(" ", $_, "0e0")'
$a = () = split(" ", $_, '0e0');

[download]

In reply to Re^4: 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

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.