Evil hack that only works for single-character splits that are otherwise well-behaved (i.e. no trailing spaces, in this case):

print ++($string =~ tr / //);
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Side note: with perl 5.6, I get "implicit split to @_ deprecated" with the scalar trick outlined above if I run under -w (and I do, oh yes, I do!)

Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor