#!perl use strict; my $Number = ' 5 4 1 321 0 698 7 3 210 2 0 0'; my @Number = split //,$Number; my $count = 0; for my $i (0..$#Number){ next if ($Number[$i] =~ /\D/); if (($count > 5) && ($count < 14)){ $Number[$i] = "X"; } ++$count; } print join '',@Number;