Your question is so vague I don't know if this will help you or not
Use split when you know what to throw away and a capturing regex when you know what to keep
I would love to attribute that quote to someone, but I've known it for so long I forgot who wrote it :(

update:

Following, tchrist's and Corion's comments I googled and I got the quote wrong, so I've added a word (s/regex/capturing regex/).

I also found this link where Dominus attributes the quote to merlyn.

I agree with all of tchrist's comments. Perhaps I should also add that it's a rule of thumb and not the law. It certainly helped me choose between using splits and captures when I was a Perl noob.

In reply to Re: To Split or Not to Split by FunkyMonk
in thread To Split or Not to Split by burningredmoon

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