more splitting

Stephane showed me this for getting a handle on how things are 
splitting, and showing a parallel hex dump:

function hex ()
{
local var
if [[ -p /dev/fd/0 ]]; then
     read var
     print -rC1 -- ${(q+)var}
     echo "\n-----------------------------\n"
     for element ("$var") print -rn -- $element | od -vAx -tx1 -tc
else
     echo
     print -rC1 -- ${(q+)@}
     echo "\n-----------------------------\n"
     for element ("$@") print -rn -- $element | od -vAx -tx1 -tc
fi

}

     ... works fine with an argument, but with a pipe things go missing::

     Run:

  % var=("a b" c$'\n''d e f'' ''g h')

  %  hex $var

'a b'
$'c\nd e f g h'

-----------------------------

000000  61  20  62
          a       b
000003
000000  63  0a  64  20  65  20  66  20  67  20  68
          c  \n   d       e       f       g       h
00000b

     ... very nice.  But:

% print -rn $var | hex

'a b c'

-----------------------------

000000  61  20  62  20  63
          a       b       c
000005

     ... I've kept symmetry between both methods but something goes 
wrong at the newline.  I know it's all there, just a question of teasing 
it out of hiding.