this is the closest I could think of:
a = "hello there"
a[-9,9]
> llo there
> --- Ursprüngliche Nachricht ---
> Von: "Pena, Botp" <botp@delmonte-phil.com>
> An: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org (ruby-talk ML)
> Betreff: Re: string slice elegant way
> Datum: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 09:41:13 +0900
>
> Mage [mailto:mage@mage.hu]
>
> #a = 'hello there'
> #and I need 'llo there'
> #
> #a[2,a.size] works, but I find it ugly because the given length
> #is larger
> #than the real length of the result.
> #a[2,a.size - 2] is okay, but it is not DRY.
> #
> #Is there any elegant way, like a[2:] in Python?
>
> is a[2..-1] good enough?
>
>