The fine documentation has an example that uses split /someregex/, $string, -1 to preserve empty trailing fields.
If I understood your question correctly, that's what you are looking for.
In reply to Re: split ignores "fields"
by moritz
in thread split ignores "fields"
by conversecorollary
| For: | Use: | ||
| & | & | ||
| < | < | ||
| > | > | ||
| [ | [ | ||
| ] | ] |