Usage: rotatelogs <logfile> <rotation time in seconds> [offset minutes
+ from UTC] or <rotation size in megabytes>
[download]

Logfile::Rotate

I checked that module out but it only increments the name of the logfile as specified by a counter value. I was hoping to rotate mine based on a time value

So copy the module, rename it, add use POSIX qw(strftime);, remove

    for($i = $self->{'Count'}; $i > 1; $i--) {
        $j = $i - 1;
            $next = "${currn}." . $i . $ext;
            $prev = "${currn}." . $j . $ext;
        if ( -r $prev && -f $prev ) {
            move($prev,$next)    ## move will attempt rename for us
                or croak "error: move failed: ($prev,$next)";
        }
    }
[download]

and change
$next = "${currn}.1";
to
$next = "${currn}_" . strfmt('...', localtime);

Here's some time formats friendly to Windows and UNIX shells which are string-sortable:

use POSIX qw(strftime);
@t = localtime;
$\ = "\n";
print strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S",      @t); # logfile_20040914151753
print strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S",     @t); # logfile_20040914-151753
print strftime("%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S",   @t); # logfile_2004-09-14-151753
print strftime("%Y-%m-%d@%H-%M-%S", @t); # logfile_2004-09-14@15-17-53
[download]

Log::Dispatch::File::Rolling

---

_Search, Ask, ^Know

Does anyone have any idea how I could create a new logfile every n minutes?

Most decent Unix systems provide you with a newsyslog utility which runs from cron or a workalike which does exactly what you want, and often much more. Any decent implementation isn't limited to working with syslog logfiles.

If you're running on Windows or something ne Unix ... well ... I honestly don't know. You'd need to post more about what sort of logfile you're rotating, any specifics about rotating it, etc. before we could be more detailed in our answers.

If you insist:

our $SLEEP_SECS    = 5;    # Wake up every 5 seconds.
our $GET_TIME_SECS = 2*60; # Resync $time every 2 minutes.
my $time = time;
my $sleep_count = 0;
{
   ... do stuff that doesn't take too long ...

   sleep($SLEEP_SECS);
   if (++$sleep_count * $SLEEP_SECS >= $GET_TIME_SECS) {
      $time = time;
      $sleep_count = 0;
   } else {
      $time += $SLEEP_SECS;   
   }

   redo; # loop back to start
}
[download]

That code falls apart if any signals wake up sleep()