I guess I don't follow. SplitN basically sets an upper bounds to the number of elements returned. Split just splits all elements. So, the check for 6 elements could already be done if that's the preference. 

Take the following code:
```go
r := strings.SplitN("", " ", 6)
fmt.Printf("%q %d\n", r, len(r))
```

It  outputs:
```
[""] 1
```