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Odd, I thought this was actually in PHP5 already, but could find no mention of it in the documentation.  It's not in the PHP4 I have here anyway.

The feature would work as in the title: $str{begin,length} would work as substr($str,begin,length).  Just a notational convenience, but struck me as a natural (and useful) extension of the $str{n} operator.

Nonessential :)