There are many ways...

sub getchar_unpack {
    my ($string, $index) = @_; 
    return unless $index >= 0 and $index < length($string); 
    return chr( (unpack 'C*', $string)[$index] );
}

sub getchar_split {
    my ($string, $index) = @_; 
    return unless $index >= 0 and $index < length($string); 
    return ( (split //, $string)[$index] );
}

sub getchar_loop {
    my ($string, $index) = @_; 
    return unless $index >= 0 and $index < length($string); 
    $string = reverse $string; 
    my $c; 
    $c = chop $string until $index-- == 0; 
    return $c;    
}
[download]

But why?

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

I'd just get reckless and call substr, anyway.

Assuming you mean get the X numbered character from the string, you could do...

sub chr_at {
  my ($data, $skip) = @_;
  --$skip;

  $data =~ /^.{$skip}(.)/;
  $1; 
}

for (1..4) {
  print chr_at("abcd", $_) . "\n";
}
[download]

...but I wouldn't be supprised if the substr() version is faster.

Perl doesn't have those oh-so-convenient functions/classes found in PHP or Java. I guess because then everyone would want a function for everything under the sun, and we would get feature creep... On the other hand, people accuse us of trying to jam too much into Perl, while knocking us for not having more of these shortcuts which would (supposedly) reduce idiosyncracies and increase standardization and maintainability.

Oh wait, there's CPAN. That's right.