Or probably even more efficient, come to think of it, just to use the default  split parameters: 

>perl -wMstrict -e
"for (@ARGV) {
  my @s = split;
  local $\" = ':';
  print qq('$_'  :@s: \n);
  }
"
""   " "   "  "   "   "   "    "
"foo"   "  foo"   "foo  "   "  foo  "
"foo bar"   "  foo bar"   "foo bar  "   "  foo bar  "
"foo bar baz"   "   foo bar baz"   "foo bar baz  "
"  foo bar baz  "
''  ::
' '  ::
'  '  ::
'   '  ::
'    '  ::
'foo'  :foo:
'  foo'  :foo:
'foo  '  :foo:
'  foo  '  :foo:
'foo bar'  :foo:bar:
'  foo bar'  :foo:bar:
'foo bar  '  :foo:bar:
'  foo bar  '  :foo:bar:
'foo bar baz'  :foo:bar:baz:
'   foo bar baz'  :foo:bar:baz:
'foo bar baz  '  :foo:bar:baz:
'  foo bar baz  '  :foo:bar:baz:

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In reply to Re^3: Looking for ways to speed up the parsing of a file... by Anonymous Monk
in thread Looking for ways to speed up the parsing of a file... by fiddler42

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