Is this what you're trying to do? 
$a = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'; 
$a =~ s/^\S{5}(\S{4})\S+/$1xxxx/ ;

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-imran

In reply to Re^2: howto replace part of a string by CountOrlok
in thread howto replace part of a string by jeanluca

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