You have a seperator sequence so there must be something to the left of it - even if it is very short :). NOte that there doesn't have to be anything after. Consider:

use warnings;
use strict;

my $test =",124,456,7890";

print "Test string: >$test<\n";

my @matches = split m/(,)/, $test;

print "Item $_ is >$matches[$_]<\n" for 0..$#matches;

[download]

Prints:

Test string: >,124,456,7890<
Item 0 is ><
Item 1 is >,<
Item 2 is >124<
Item 3 is >,<
Item 4 is >456<
Item 5 is >,<
Item 6 is >7890<

[download]
DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

In reply to Re: I'm splitting a scalar and putting the results in an array. Why is the first element empty? by GrandFather
in thread I'm splitting a scalar and putting the results in an array. Why is the first element empty? by meanroy

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