Help with ListLen()

I'm confused. In Adobe ColdFusion 8 documentation online it is said that ColdFusion ignores empty list elements; thus, the list "a,b,c,,,d" has four elements.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/help.html?content=functions_l_15.html

If I use ListLen on the following List:

a|b|c|d| | |g|h >> <CFSET TheList = "a|b|c|d| | |g|h">

<CFSET Total = "#ListLen(TheList, "|")#> I got: 7 instead of 6 as the result

So does ListLen function is counting my "Bar" as delimiter on that list OR ListLen function is counting the list elements (a,b,c,d,g,h)??????

I need a coldfusion function to count the "Bars" NOT the elements. Or is there CF function counting the elements but including empty elements.

On my test, ListLen is actually counting the Delimiter which is the "Bar" in my case, does it means the documentation is wrong?

if the documentation is correct and it s counting the element, I did not get that result. Please help!!!