i see two ways to answer this question. you could use a regex: (assuming the data is in $_): 
m/(\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2}\s*?\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\s*?$name\s*Communications Al
+arm\s*Critical|Minor\s*?.{17})/;
$data = $1;

[download]
that expression may need some debugging, but thats the basic idea. $name can be replaced by something to represent the N1B1,etcs. i don't know what that part of the data is so i'm not sure how to represent it in a regex. second option: 
($date, $time, $name, $comm, $alarm, $severity, $data) = split ' ',$_,
+7;
$data = substr ($data,0,17);

[download]
again this might need a little tweaking, but thats the basic idea. there are other ways as well, but these are the two that popped into my head.

In reply to Re: How do I print only some letters of this string by jlistf
in thread How do I print only some letters of this string by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.