#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $string = "\001hello\002world\003lookit\004these\005weird\006characters";
my $string2 = $string;
# replace ASCII chars from 0 to 8 with spaces
$string =~ tr[\000-\010][         ];

# or delete weird chars:
$string2 =~ tr[\000-\010][]d;
print "string is $string\n";
print "string2 is $string2\n";

__END__