$ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' ## leading foo bar 3 $ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' ## trailing foo bar 3 $ perl -lpe '($_=()=/\s+/g)++' ## both foo bar 4 $ _ #### $ perl -wle 'print scalar (()=/\S+/g) for "a b c", " a b c", "a b c ", " a b c "' 3 3 3 3 $ _