There's also the unpack method (as long as we're playing around with More Than One Way To Do It).

my $value = "1234";
( undef, $value ) = unpack "AA*", $value;
print $value, "\n";
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Oh, and while I'm at it, here's a split method.

my $value = "1234";
( undef, $value ) = split //, $value, 2;
print $value, "\n";
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And another split method:

my $value = "1234";
$value = (split //, $value, 2)[1];
print $value, "\n";.
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Of course the indexed list method also works with unpack:

my $value = "1234";
$value = (unpack "AA*", $value)[1];
print $value, "\n";
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Update: Did someone mention map? Now we're getting ridiculous:

my $data = "1234";
my $i = 0;
$data = join '', map { $i++ ? $_ : '' } split //, $data;
print $data, "\n";
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Enjoy!