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

my $str = 'Sat May 5 02:29:11 2001';
 
substr($str,0,4,'');
substr($str,-4,4,'');

print $str;

##</code><code>##

#This will also do in case you don't have 4 param substr (i forgot about that)

$str = 'Sat May 5 02:29:11 2001';
substr($str,0,4) = '';
substr($str,-4,4) = '';