---
name: split
status: documented
runtime: pp
source: src/runtime/pp/regex/split.rs
---
```{index} single: split; Perl built-in (pp runtime)
```

# split

## Synopsis

```perl
@fields = split /PATTERN/, EXPR, LIMIT;
@fields = split /PATTERN/, EXPR;
@fields = split /PATTERN/;           # splits $_
@fields = split ' ', $string;        # awk-style split
my $count = split /,/, $csv;         # scalar context: count
```

## Description

Splits a string into a list of substrings using a pattern.

Splits EXPR (or `$_` if omitted) into substrings at each match of
PATTERN.  If LIMIT is positive, returns at most LIMIT fields.  If
LIMIT is negative, behaves as if arbitrarily large.  If LIMIT is
zero or omitted (default), trailing empty fields are stripped.

Special case: `split ' '` (with `pmflags & 0x800`) uses awk-style
semantics -- splits on runs of whitespace and ignores leading
whitespace.  An empty pattern (`split //, $str`) splits every
character.

If a `split_targ` is set in the op, results are stored directly
into the target array (pad slot) instead of the stack.  In scalar
context, returns the number of fields.

## See also

join, m//g, perlre