Remove a string between strings?

local oldstr = ""
local newstr = ""
local totalstrlength = 0
local strcutoutbegin = 0
local strcutoutend = 0

function replaceStr(oldstr,totalstrlength,strcutoutbegin,strcutoutend)
	local tempstr1 = ""
	local tempstr2 = ""
	--The strsub(s,i,j) function uses string 's' and copies it over starting
	--from the character at position i up to the character at position j.
	tempstr1 = strsub(oldstr,1,strcutoutbegin-1)
	tempstr2 = strsub(oldstr,strcutoutend+1,totalstrlength)
  
	newstr = tempstr1..tempstr2
	print(newstr)
	return true
end

--[[Call the function]]--
-- Say you want to remove ', defunct' from the following line:
oldstr = "This is the old, defunct string"
--The length of this particular string is 31 characters.
totalstrlength = #oldstr

--From which character in the string do we need to start cutting?
--And where do we need to stop?
--In this case, we want to remove the text starting from the
--16th character up to and including the 24th character.

--16
strcutoutbegin = tonumber(read())

--24
strcutoutend = tonumber(read())

replaceStr(oldstr,totalstrlength,strcutoutbegin,strcutoutend)
--It should now print "This is the old string"