Split with Regex

split can use a regex separator to break text into fields.

split_regex.pl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $line = ;
my @words = split /\s+/, $line;
my $first = $words[0];
my $count = scalar @words;

print "line=$line\n";
print "first=$first\n";
print "count=$count\n";

use strict;
use warnings;

my $line = ;
my @words = split /\s+/, $line;
my $first = $words[0];
my $count = scalar @words;

print "line=$line\n";
print "first=$first\n";
print "count=$count\n";

use strict;
use warnings;

my $line = ;
my @words = split /\s+/, $line;
my $first = $words[0];
my $count = scalar @words;

print "line=$line\n";
print "first=$first\n";
print "count=$count\n";

split A split turns one string into fields wherever the separator pattern matches.