>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $s = 'a.bb.ccc.d';
 ;;
 my @ra = split '.', $s;
 print 'naked dot';
 printf qq{  '$_'} for @ra;
 print '@ra elements: ', scalar @ra;
 ;;
 @ra = split '\.', $s;
 print 'escaped dot';
 printf qq{  '$_'} for @ra;
"
naked dot
@ra elements: 0
escaped dot
  'a'  'bb'  'ccc'  'd'