note ferreira I think I have misunderstood that behavior: <c> $ perl -e '@a = split //, 'abc'; print "@a"' a b c $ perl -e '@a = split / /x, 'abc'; print "@a"' a b c $ perl -e '@a = split / # /x, 'abc'; print "@a"' a b c $ perl -e '@a = split / (?#) /x, 'abc'; print "@a"' a b c </c> <p>The logic of [doc://split] does not need to be special for this to work. These are real empty patterns and <c>split</c> understand they are meant to split characters as they return empty delimiters. But you were saying that the same is not automatic for patterns equivalente to <c>/^/</c>. Sorry for the confusion I made. 591988 592376