Sounds like golf! First, a not-that-obfuscated version that emulates cut -cSPEC: 

#!perl -lp

BEGIN {
    $s = shift
}

sub cut
{
    my ($s, $r) = pop;
    for (split /,/, shift) {
        $r .= /(\d+)-(\d+)/ ? substr $s,$1-1,$2-$1+1 : substr $s, $_-1
+,1;
    }
    $r;
}

chomp;
$_=cut $s, $_;

[download]
Alright, now let's get started with a 104 96: 
#!perl -lp
BEGIN{@s=split/,/,shift}
chomp;
$x=$_;
/(\d+)-?/,
$r.=substr$x,$1-1,($'||$1)-$1+1
for@s,$r='';
$_=$r

[download]
...or 73: 
#!perl -ln
BEGIN{($s=shift)=~s/-/../g}
chomp;
$x=$_;
print+map{substr$x,$_-1,1}eval$s

[download]

In reply to Re: get string/array slices using cut-like specifications by educated_foo
in thread get string/array slices using cut-like specifications by jdporter

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