In the spirit of TMTOWTDI: 
$name =~ /^(.{0,4})/ && print "$1\n";

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In the matter of obtaining the filenames, I fully agree with dHarry, use readdir & co.

In reply to Re: How do i take the first 4 characters of any file name in a specified directory? by pjotrik
in thread How do i take the first 4 characters of any file name in a specified directory? by Anonymous Monk

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