# For Perl (language) only # syntax substr(<your-string>,0,<characters-to-extract>) # example substr("Cool, isn't it!",0,4) # application my $sRandom = "Cool, isn't it!"; my $s1stFewChars = substr($sRandom,0,4); print "[ sRandom : '$sRandom' ] \n[ s1stFewChars : '$s1stFewChars' ]" . "\n";