The question was why doesn't the array "gobble up the empty field at the end?". I was merely showing that an array won't gobble up one or many empty fields at the end.

In fact, an array won't gobble up empty fields at the start, middle or end:

$ perl -E 'my ($x, @y) = (1,2,,3); say $#y'
1

$ perl -E 'my ($x, @y) = (1,2,,,,3,); say $#y'
1

$ perl -E 'my ($x, @y) = (1,,,,,,2,,,,,); say $#y'
0
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Your question only showed the 2-argument form of split; however, answers with the 3-argument form seemed more to your liking.

I expect the underlying problem may be the huge disconnect that sometimes occurs when people communicate in a common language. :-)