while ((my $begin, my $end) =  each %exon_endpoints) {
    print get_exon($chromosome, $begin, $end), "\n\n";
}

sub get_exon {
    my($chromosome, $begin, $end) = @_;

    # The arguments to substr are: string, beginning, length
    return substr($chromosome, $begin - 1, $end - $begin + 1);
}