As you can see, the spaces in the string are preserved when using 'abc' as the separator. This may or may not be the behaviour you want.

You could actually target two arrays, one for words and one for separators, by combining the split with a push. If you don't actually want the trailing and leading spaces preserved, you could be to split on white space and direct to a separate arrays as before.

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ perl -E '
> $str = q{one abc two abc three abc four};
> $sep = q{abc};
> say q{-} x 25;
> 
> @arr = split m{($sep)}, $str;
> say qq{Split on m{($sep)} into one array};
> say qq{  ->$_<-} for @arr;
> say  q{-} x 25;
> 
> push @{ $_ eq $sep ? \ @seps : \ @nums }, $_
>    for split m{($sep)}, $str;
> say qq{Split on m{($sep)} into two arrays};
> say  q{  Nums:};
> say qq{  ->$_<-} for @nums;
> say  q{  Seps:};
> say qq{  ->$_<-} for @seps;
> say  q{-} x 25;
> 
> @seps = (); @nums = ();
> push @{ $_ eq $sep ? \ @seps : \ @nums }, $_
>    for split m{\s+}, $str;
> say qq{Split on m{\\s+} into two arrays};
> say  q{  Nums:};
> say qq{  ->$_<-} for @nums;
> say  q{  Seps:};
> say qq{  ->$_<-} for @seps;
> say  q{-} x 25;'
-------------------------
Split on m{(abc)} into one array
  ->one <-
  ->abc<-
  -> two <-
  ->abc<-
  -> three <-
  ->abc<-
  -> four<-
-------------------------
Split on m{(abc)} into two arrays
  Nums:
  ->one <-
  -> two <-
  -> three <-
  -> four<-
  Seps:
  ->abc<-
  ->abc<-
  ->abc<-
-------------------------
Split on m{\s+} into two arrays
  Nums:
  ->one<-
  ->two<-
  ->three<-
  ->four<-
  Seps:
  ->abc<-
  ->abc<-
  ->abc<-
-------------------------
knoppix@Microknoppix:~$
[download]

I hope this is of interest.

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