Is the empty string normal behavior??  I think Gene is visualizing the string:

314185798Ã?59858Ã?2004-11-19Ã?2004-11-19 23:08:00Ã? KPFS-IN NCAL-INTERFACEÃ?121314Ã?121314Ã?
121314Ã? 

as this
314185798Ã?
59858Ã?
2004-11-19Ã?
2004-11-19 23:08:00Ã?
 KPFS-IN NCAL-INTERFACEÃ?
121314Ã?
121314Ã?
121314Ã?

So there are 8 strings and 8 delimiters 

Now Perl has been around for over 30 years and I have been programming in Perl for over 13 y
ears and use it as a standard for these things.  Perl's split returns 8 strings as expected 
as above.  So can someone please explain why Tcl's split "sees" an empty string at the end o
f the line?  I do not think this is normal behavior.

Perl code:
$s = '314185798Ã?59858Ã?2004-11-19Ã?2004-11-19 23:08:00Ã? KPFS-IN NCAL-INTERFACEÃ?121314Ã?12
1314Ã?121314Ã?';
@items = split (/Ã?/, $s);
foreach $item (@items) { print "$item\n"; }
$size = scalar(@items);
print "Size of list = $size\n";

Mike...

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: activetcl-bounces@[...].com 
>  [mailto:activetcl-bounces@[...].com] On Behalf 
>  Of Flavio Salgueiro
>  Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 12:15 AM
>  To: Jeff Hobbs; Gene Osteen
>  Cc: activetcl@[...].com
>  Subject: Re: [Activetcl] split doing two different things
>  
>  I think that the extra field he is seeing is due to the 
>  normal behavior of split. The trailing Ã? at the end of the 
>  list will give you an empty string.
>  My suggestion is to use 'string trim $myString Ã?' to get rid 
>  of the trailing delimiter which is giving the extra blank 
>  field at the end. You would get the same result if you tried 
>  'llength [split a: :]' this would result in a count of two 
>  because split gives you "a and {}" not just "a".
>  
>  Cheers,
>  
>  Flavio 
>  
>  @-> -----Original Message-----
>  @-> From: activetcl-bounces@[...].com 
>  [mailto:activetcl- @-> bounces@[...].com] On 
>  Behalf Of Jeff Hobbs @-> Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 6:10 PM 
>  @-> To: Gene Osteen @-> Cc: activetcl@[...].com
>  @-> Subject: Re: [Activetcl] split doing two different things 
>  @-> @-> Gene Osteen wrote:
>  @-> >             I use the split command to tell me how many 
>  fields are in
>  @-> a
>  @-> > line of text sent to me. The data is character 
>  delimited with a Ã? as @-> the @-> > delimiter. Each line of 
>  text ends with a Ã?. Normally if I do a split I @-> > get one 
>  more list element than there are fields. I have a case where 
>  @-> > this is not happening. I am including 2 examples. The 
>  first is not @-> > working as expected the line of data is:
>  @-> >
>  @-> > 314185798Ã?59858Ã?2004-11-19Ã?2004-11-19 23:08:00Ã? KPFS-IN 
>  @-> > NCAL-INTERFACEÃ?121314Ã?121314Ã?121314Ã?
>  @-> >
>  @-> > For some reason the list length here is 8 which is also 
>  the number of @-> Ã?s @-> > in the line.
>  @->
>  @-> I don't have the same issue, getting the expected correct 
>  results with @-> 8.4.18 and 8.5.2:
>  @->
>  @-> (Tcl) 49 % set str {314185798Ã?59858Ã?2004-11-19Ã?2004-11-19 
>  23:08:00Ã? @-> KPFS-IN NCAL-INTERFACEÃ?121314Ã?121314Ã?121314Ã?}
>  @-> 314185798Ã?59858Ã?2004-11-19Ã?2004-11-19 23:08:00Ã? KPFS-IN 
>  @-> NCAL-INTERFACEÃ?121314Ã?121314Ã?121314Ã?
>  @-> (Tcl) 50 % regexp -all Ã? $str
>  @-> 8
>  @-> (Tcl) 51 % llength [split $str Ã?]
>  @-> 9
>  @-> (Tcl) 52 % split $str Ã?
>  @-> 314185798 59858 2004-11-19 {2004-11-19 23:08:00} { 
>  KPFS-IN @-> NCAL-INTERFACE} 121314 121314 121314 {} @-> @-> 
>  Jeff @-> _______________________________________________
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