#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

#extract column with unpack
$a = "To be or not to be";
$b = unpack("x6 A6", $a);  #skip 6, grab 6
print $b;

($b, $c) = unpack("x6 A2 x5 A2", $a);   #forward 6, grab 2; backward 5, grab 2
print "$b\n$c\n";