split() question

[Paul Makepeace]

=item split /PATTERN/,EXPR

Splits a string into an array of strings, and returns it.  By default,
empty leading fields are preserved, and empty trailing ones are deleted.

=cut

Is there some way to preserve trailing empty fields without explicitly
setting a LIMIT? (I would like to do this so I can check that a file has
the right number of fields (i.e. whether it's corrupt or not).)

Paul