What does print(" a b ".split(" ")) output?

Console output

Why

When you pass an explicit separator like " ", split treats each occurrence as a boundary and does NOT collapse runs or strip the ends, so consecutive spaces produce empty strings. The two leading spaces, the double space between a and b, and the trailing space all create empty fields, giving `['', '', 'a', '', 'b', '']`. This is the key contrast with the no-argument form.