Yes it does.

$ perl test.pl |od -ta
0000000  sp  sp  sp  sp  nl  sp  sp  sp  sp  nl  sp  sp  sp  sp  nl  s
+p
0000020  sp  sp  sp  nl
0000024

$ perl test.pl |od -tx1
0000000 20 20 20 20 0a 20 20 20 20 0a 20 20 20 20 0a 20
0000020 20 20 20 0a
0000024

$
[download]

You're supposed to replace something with a simple expression that evaluates to true when you want to print spaces.