A shorter version (for Perl 5.10 and later) with the same meaning would be this:

$xyz //= ' ';
print "<td colspan=x>$xyz</td>\n";
[download]

But thinking about it just reminds me that my vim syntax highlighter doesn't understand these new 5.10 features.

@_=qw;
Just another Perl hacker,;
;$_=q=print
"@_"= and eval;
[download]