my $str='Blah blah blah';
my $removed=substr($str,0,2,"");
print "Removed=$removed and Str=$str\n";
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Yves
--
You are not ready to use symrefs unless you already know why they are bad. -- tadmc (CLPM)

Also the value that substr returns is an lvalue (i.e. can be assigned to).

perl -le '$_ = "foo bar"; substr($_,0,2) = ""; print'
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Greetings krose,

Try the following where 2 is the number of characters you want removed from the 'some string' given:

-gryphon
code('Perl') || die;

$_ = "just another perl hacker";
$_ = reverse, chop, chop && print scalar reverse;
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cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Ah, but what if you had some "evil" string such as:

$_ = '10.) just another perl hacker';
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-Blake

How about

my $i;
print join '', grep $i++>1, split //, '#!just another perl hacker';
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$_ = '10.) just another perl hacker';
$_ = reverse,chop,chop,print scalar reverse;
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Perl a problem for every solution solution for every problem

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Other than substr, there is always the regex method:

$_ = "just another perl hacker";
s/^.{2}(.*)$/$1/;
print;
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D a d d i o

What happens with this string?

$_=qq!\nJ\nu\ns\t another Perl hacker!;
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Your regexp fails, because \n is not matched by /./ Nobody have said that the two first characters matches with /./
Try this


s/(\w|\W){2}//;
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Regards
Hopes

Very well spotted, Hopes. Dot not matching a newline is such a common mistake it's easy to forget. I'm glad that you noticed it.

<pedant>

Actually, it's possible to get dot to match everything by using the /s switch. This also has the benefit that ^ and $ will match the beginning and end of the string, and not at line breaks, which for our purposes here is desirable. See the perlre man page for details.

Hence $string =~ s/^..//s does what we want, even if we are dealing with newlines. If you don't mind losing clarity, you can even drop the ^ in this situation.

</pedant>

Having said all that, the substr method described above would be my recommendation. (It's also likely to be the fastest). ;)

Cheers,
Paul

why use $1?

s/^.{2}//s;
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The s modifier at the end takes care of \n chars as well.

But substr() is the best way anyway... :)

.02

cLive ;-)

Here is a list of threads on choping the first character of strings; thanks to Limbic~Region for finding them.

• howto strip the first char of a string?
• this thread, Deleting from front of string
• First char out of a string & surprises with errors on chop reverse $string (that doesn't work!)
• Chopping the beginning of a string?
• cut of first char of a string