#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @range =
    map /^(\d+)-(\d+)$/,
    sort { $a <=> $b }
    splice @ARGV, 1;

unshift @range, 0;
$range[$_] = 1 + $range[$_+1] - $range[$_] for 0 .. $#range-1;
$range[-1] = '*';

die "Negative length field specified"
    if grep $_ < 0, @range[0 .. $#range-1];

my $fmt = join " ", map "A$_", @range;

# pick odd numbered elements
my @selected = map 1 + $_ * 2, 0..$range_/2;

while(<>) {
    my @field = unpack $fmt, $_;
    for (@field[@selected]) {
        tr/a-zA-Z0-9\n\|\-'/ /c;
        tr/'//d;
    }
    print join '', @field;
}