You could also use a regex although this is not as fast as substr. 

my $n = 3;

my $str = "1234567890\n";
$str =~ s/^.{$n}//s;
# was: $str =~ s/^.{$n}(.*)$/$1/s;
print $str;

[download]

The difference with the regex solution is that if $n > length $str no change will be made. With substr you will get a null string left in $str if you try to delete more chars than exist in $str. You need the /s modifier to make the . match a newline which is a valid char.

cheers

tachyon

To get the same behavior as a substr solution use: $str =~ s/^.{1,$n}//s;

Edit by tye to incorporate I0's reply

In reply to Re: How do I delete the first n characters on a line by tachyon
in thread How do I delete the first n characters on a line by CyCliC

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