split does use a regex, as the second parameter passed to it. That being said, perhaps a regex with a capture will effectively propagate an array for you, sans the 'extra characters:'

use Modern::Perl;
use Data::Dumper;

my $a = 'a,b,c,d,,,,,,,';

my @col = $a =~ /([^,]+)/gi;

say Dumper \@col;
[download]

Output:

$VAR1 = [
          'a',
          'b',
          'c',
          'd'
        ];
[download]

However, if you know the number of columns and want to limit split to those, you can do the following:

use Modern::Perl;
use Data::Dumper;

my $a = 'a,b,c,d,,,,,,,';

my @col = ( split ',', $a, )[ 0 .. 3 ];

say Dumper \@col;
[download]

Output:

$VAR1 = [
          'a',
          'b',
          'c',
          'd'
        ];
[download]

Hope this helps!

Update: my @col = split /,+/, $a; produces the same output as both examples above.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.