c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $x = qq{1234 abcd 5678}; dd split //, $x; dd split /\b|\B/, $x; " (1 .. 4, " ", "a" .. "d", " ", 5 .. 8) (1 .. 4, " ", "a" .. "d", " ", 5 .. 8) #### c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $x = qq{1234 \n abcd \n 5678}; dd split /^/, $x; dd split /$/, $x; " ("1234 \n", " abcd \n", " 5678") "1234 \n abcd \n 5678"