As documented in split:

If the PATTERN contains parentheses, additional list elements are created from each matching substring in the delimiter.

You can get your expected behavior by changing to a non-capturing group:

(?:<\/p>)?\s*<p>

In reply to Re: Don't understand behavior of this split by kennethk
in thread Don't understand behavior of this split by cormanaz

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
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