split with "*" in string and ljust() puzzles

[Serge Orlov]

Sambo wrote:
> I have just (finally) realized that it is splitting and removing
> on single space but that seams useless, and split items
> 1 and 2 are empty strings not spaces??

What is useless for you is worth $1,000,000 for somebody else ;)
If you have comma separated list '1,,2'.split(',') naturally returns
['1', '', '2']. I think you can get what you want with a simple regexp.